Although integral to online culture, selfies don’t receive widespread acceptance everywhere.
For example, in Berlin, Germany, there’s a tendency to see selfies as unnecessary and egocentric, a perspective influenced by the city’s emphasis on privacy and being present. This contrasts sharply with the United States, where capturing self-portraits is a common and widely accepted activity.
So—PhotoAiD has decided to explore the selfie-taking habits of over 1,000 Americans, discovering that a significant majority (60%) engage in selfie-taking on a weekly basis.
The research further investigated why people take selfies, the kind of edits they prefer, and the duration spent taking these photos.
As it turns out, the primary motive for taking selfies was to preserve memories, accounting for 36% of the responses. This was followed by the desire to share moments with friends and family, which garnered 24%, and using selfies as a form of self-expression, which came in at 15%.
Regarding the preferred modifications to selfies, the most popular form of edit involves fundamental photo adjustments. It includes actions such as cropping, rotating, or flipping the image, with 16% of survey takers opting for these basic changes.
Notably, a considerable number of people (19%) expressed a preference for not editing their selfies at all.
When it came to the amount of time spent on taking a selfie, most respondents (59%) reported they usually capture their selfies quickly, with the process taking no more than two minutes on average.
About the Study
Conducted in November 2023, the survey involved 1,044 US respondents and employed a bespoke online polling tool. The findings offer a confidence level of 95% with a margin of error of 3%.
About PhotoAiD
PhotoAiD is an online passport photo service for taking compliant ID photos, serving 1M+ customers in more than 150 countries.