Abstract

Social media, including online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, have developed at an extreme rate over the last few years (Chou, Hunt, Beckjord, Moser, & Hesse, 2009; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Common usages of social media, and its relative novelty, are related to an emergence of new psychological and social phenomena. Although many studies have investigated individual differences in online social networking, few have examined the recent and rapidly popularized social phenomenon of the “selfie” (a self-portrait photograph of oneself). The objective of this exploratory study was to examine the impacts of selfie on Self image of disabled students studying in higher education. A questionnaire was developed based on previous literatures and a total of 126 students were randomly selected for the present study.

            The findings disclosed that there are positive impacts of selfie for students with different disabilities whereby students believe that selfie can increase one’s perception and confidence in self imaging. Its negative impact was also seen on self image of visual impaired students in comparison to students with other disabilities. Few students also reported its negative impact in the form of wasting time and editing photos before posting to social media.