Are you posting gym selfies on social media? Guess what… Science says you are or tend to become a narcissist!

Let’s be honest, each of us has at least one friend on the social media friends list who is constantly posting his or her daily routine in the gym. Or maybe that person is you?

The descriptions under the photo “I lifted 100 kilos in the bench press, so pumped” or “I run 5 kilometers, I could be a world champion” are greatly irritating.

Scientists at the University of Brunel of Londonconducted a study which was aimed to find outwhy so many people are taking gym selfies and sharing their training details on social media. The results are not really encouraging.

The study

The main conclusion of this study says that people who take photos or videos during their activity in the gym tend to be narcissists. According to researchers, the primary goal is to boast about how much time they are investing in their appearance.

Obviously, these status updates are earning more “Likes” on social media than any other posts.

The self-obsessed individuals are bombing their audience with their achievements. This is an indicator of their need for attention and recognition from the social media community, says the study. A large number of “Likes” does not necessarily mean that the others enjoy these posts.

Although the results show that narcissists get more “likes” and comments on such updates, the study shows that their friends in their social media circles secretly dislike them.

The growing tendency for selfies with the latest smartphones is associated with the persistence of the individual with the exterior. Also, people who take a selfie and immediately publish it on any social network are more likely to exhibit signs of psychopathy.

At the same time, typical behaviours for “selfie-obsessed” people include a lack of empathy and impulsivity.

The age of narcissists

The biggest problem of this new psychological disorder, which could be called Digital Narcissism, is that it puts tremendous pressure on people to attain unattainable goals, while simultaneously making them more persistent to achieve the unachievable.

Self is not a photo of the landscape, beach or a forest. We make sure that we are always in the picture, in order to impress others as much as we can. The display of each moment is now with one hand stretched forward. We try to look at the camera with our best smile or running on the treadmill while striving to fit in the frame of three and something inches.

In 2013, the word ‘selfie’ was chosen as a Word of the Year. That did not happen accidentally. Social media with the invisible power created a new stream with the selfies. The fury of the selfie has affected our behaviour at a significant degree.



It turned us all into stars and celebrities. This is waking up the Narcissus that was sleeping inside us.

Of course, the biggest percentage of the narcissists and generally people who are obsessed with selfies are located in the gym. The gym has a lot of mirrors and that is the first step for narcissism. Then, there comes an obsession with gym selfies. We start to take one photo after another.

Humanity today needs to learn how to increase self-esteem and how to live in the world which is predominantly ruled by social media narcissists. Taking fewer selfies and more landscape and landmark photos would be the first step on this path.

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