1, 2, Smile! Makati and Pasig, Selfiest Cities of the World
Source: GMA News Online
Taking pictures has really evolved through time and developed many styles and forms when it comes to posing in front of the camera. From the traditional cameras where the number of shots is limited to digital cameras where we can take pictures as many as we like as long as we have a memory card that usually ranges from one to thirty two gigabytes. Now that's a lot of picture!
Nowadays, in a generation where people are active virtually on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, taking photos become more of a habit because people are fond of posting pictures of what they are doing, where they are at the moment, what they are eating, who they are with...well...almost everything and anything under the sun. You name it.
I think the most common pose when it comes to taking pictures is what people call "selfie" where one takes a photo of himself or herself, usually close-up to the face and it only focuses on the face. It's like the favorite pose or shot of narcissistic people, the vain ones. Because of the popularity of the term, Oxford Dictionary declared "selfie" as the word of the year in 2013. According to Oxford Dictionary, selfie is defined as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." Selfie is said to be a term that is already used in 2002 when someone posted a comment on an online forum in Australia and mentioned of the term "selfie" as that person refers to a photo. Editorial Director Judy Pearsalls said that the term has also been used in 2004 on a photo hosting site called Flickr.
On a study that was conducted by TIME Magazine that was released yesterday, two cities in Metro Manila, namely, Makati and Pasig City ranked first as the "selfiest cities" in the world. Yes, you read it right. How the TIME conducted the study? They had a database of 400, 000 pictures in Instagram with the tag "selfie" and the geographical coordinates. Four hundred fifty nine cities have been ranked. It turns out, out of a hundred thousand people, Makati and Pasig city generated the most number of people taking selfie photos which is 258. Manhattan, New York ranked as second with 202 and Miami, Florida as third with 155. Another city in the Philippines also made it to the top 10 which is Cebu City.
What can this study tell about the Philippines? Are we vain people? Or do we just love taking pictures of ourselves? Maybe. It is evident that Filipinos do love selfie. Whenever I go online in Facebook, I can see my Facebook friends posting so many pictures of themselves. It is so many that they even have an album of it then the name of the album goes something like, "Vain" or "Selfie." I must admit, I also do selfies but I don't usually post them on my Facebook account. There are also times when my profile picture is a selfie. I guess selfie is here to stay.
Technology truly has a great impact on society. It has its advantages as well as disadvantages. As for the virtual world, just be cautious when posting pictures. It is not really necessary to post everything, right? As long as we can still differentiate what is supposed to be public and private, we'll be fine.
SOURCES:
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/two-philippine-cities-named--selfie--capital-of-the-world-085911546.html
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/352001/scitech/socialmedia/makati-pasig-are-selfie-capital-of-the-world-according-to-time-study
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/press-releases/oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year-2013/
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