Whether that’s fact or verisimilitude, statistics tell us that 5.2 billion selfies are taken every day. That’s a number outdating the boring old one of 92 million in 2022, which now approximates a flashless nighttime snapshot during a power outage. With the world population at 8,223,720,062 (and counting) that’s a lot. And a frightening explosion of look-at-me-looking-at-me scribbling across the world in three short years.

Over a year, an entire weekend and a Monday sickie are spent taking photos of ourselves. We only spend 24 hours and 20 minutes brushing our teeth. Mostly, we don’t even floss.

Before digital cameras, nobody would have dared waste so much film on themselves. Had they, it would have been at the risk of being mercilessly ribbed by their friends, and forking out fifteen Aussie bucks to develop a roll of 24 for everyone to cry laughing at.

That selfies are free might be a fraction of the reason they’re so ubiquitous, but there’s gotta be more to it than that. Love’s free, and we’re a bit short on that. We have situationships, low effort trends, texting games, hook ups and body self-consciousness elbowing relationships out of the way like a 24-year-old in the 16th Arrondissement on the Right Bank of Paris. Currently, as determined by international humanitarian law there are 110 armed conflicts going on in the world.

Some of which have gone on for more than fifty years, longer than the half-life of most porcelain veneers.

Which may very well be the length of time before present-day adolescents experience any type of sexual activity. Apart from the obvious reason of procreation, intimate human relations influence cognitive function, health, happiness and overall quality of life. So broad is the range of benefits from this biologically programmed personal interaction, it’s global decline has researchers alarmed.

These decreases in all forms of partnered and solo pleasure aren’t trivial. According to the 2018 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour, the surveyed age ranged from 14 to 49. It reported that 44.2% of young men and 74% of young women had never partaken in any sexual activity, either alone or with someone else.

No wonder the world’s screwy. Too busy being in love with the idea of ourselves for even the idea of a bit of self love. Forget STIs and RSI – selfie related deaths are the new public health risk. Since 2008, 480 people have died taking the photo of themselves they simply couldn’t live without. Hundreds more have sustained life-altering injuries, and we get all freaked out by shark attacks. (Which, by the way totalled four fatalities worldwide in 2008. Five in 2009. You get the gist; even counting 2020 as the worst year for it just in Australia, at ate.. sorry.. eight.)

This (heightened) sense of individual autonomy was indeed a foreign concept for people of pre-modernity. For them, their life was at the mercy of a god or spirit.

American psychologist Julian Jaynes (1920-1997) explored the nature of the internal and external awareness of the human state in his 1976 study, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. In it, he introduces his hypothesis that the human mind once operated with division between the cognitive functions of internal voice, and that which listens to it and complies.

He interprets passages from The Iliad (c.7th century BCE) as indicative that ancient Greeks possessed “… no will of their own and certainly no notion of free will.” Thoughts were considered voices of the gods, and this breakdown of a bicameral mind resulted in what we deem human consciousness.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had a radical emergence of self in this Hellenic world, five hundred years later.

With individuals now given the power, it was no longer the gods speaking in our heads, but ourselves. This separation from higher beings, the rest of the world, and the cosmos was the recognition that people had the ability to think and reason, to think deeply as a precursor to the superficiality of life’s veneers which was eventually to arise, circa now..

How well or not we actually do that, is certainly up for debate.

Should the proliferation of jumping-the-shark reality shows prove logic’s on the downhill run, the findings of that National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour needs to be under consideration into the high school curriculum compulsory reading list as a ‘What Not To Do’ handbook.

One of the substantiated reasons for happiness is when expectation matches reality. Which becomes much easier when we stop bending, twisting and warping the second part of that.

Obviously, measuring happiness is much like herding cats. Is it a mood? A neurotransmitter? A biochemical reaction? Are there cultural differences?

Aristotle defined happiness not as a pleasurable or joyful moment, but rather what it means to live a life of fulfilment and flourishing wellbeing. As habitual action, not emotional state. He termed it Eudaimonia, and this concept of life having deeper meaning through virtue and purpose became central to Greek philosophy.

It seems we find no value in this eudaemonic perspective to pursue authenticity and profundity. Instead, we prioritise instant gratification; which explains obsessive online shopping and drive-in fast, fast food. It’s what wiped out letter writing for emails, book reading for YouTube, and it unstoppably feeds and fuels social media like diesel for Robert Kuok’s supremely obscene History Supreme.

It has literally rewired our brains; and in doing so, it’s short-circuited our connection to ourselves and each other.

As long as it looks good, it’s good enough. Only there’s no ‘enough’ like there was, before we decided that a life devoid of pain and discomfort is the ultimate goal. Epicureanism and Hedonism are the only exceptions to multiple philosophical disciplines over three thousand years, that essentially impress upon us that pain is inevitable.

It’s the suffering that’s not; and that’s where the personal growth and learning resides. We’re familiar with “no pain, no gain” and it appears permanently relegated to fitness influencers, shapewear and plastic surgery.

With music a reflection of culture and society, it prompted a 2024 study of 12,000 English lyrics, across several genres of songs that were released between 1980 and 2020. It found that the words and sentiments have become angrier, more repetitive and more self-obsessed. It also validated previous research, that concluded a marked decrease in expressions of the positive and heartening making way for odium and sadness.

These sounds are witness to the change in values, emotion and preoccupation over the last four decades.

Whether we skip a song or not is decided within the first 15 seconds – so instant has our instant gratification become. We don’t build, we bulldoze. Effort, consistency and sincerity aren’t convenient; and feelings are liabilities. This perception we have of ourselves as separate to the external world has it increasingly obvious that the modern self is way out of balance. Does that therefore mean that any happiness we find is likewise unstable?

Studies tell us that the happiest year ever was 1957. Elvis had the number one song of the year with All Shook Up. Social media was reading parts of the newspaper aloud and listening to the radio together. Influencers were known as ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. Relationships began with a type, not a swipe. It was also around the time that the defining quality of someone changed from “character” to “personality”, extending the sense of individual freedom. With it came the idea that images could be built, and identities created.

It’s interesting to note that 2024’s Grammy Song of the Year was won by Billie Eilish for What Was I Made For? from the ‘Barbie’ soundtrack. You can’t get any more veneer than that.

Disclaimer: The material posted is for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Results vary with each patient. Any dental procedure carries risks and benefits. If you have any specific questions about any dental and/or medical matter, you should consult your dentist, physician or other professional healthcare providers.

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