Do you take selfies? Cell phones are making us uglier. The front-facing camera also affects the demand for plastic surgery
According to Jenny Mustard, there are five main sources of our feeling that we are simply not beautiful. These influences bombard us almost constantly. If we understand them, there's a better chance that we'll behave a little differently next time - better towards our SELF, which we abuse with sometimes too harsh self-criticism.
Cameras on the phone
Maybe you've ever been bothered that your selfies don't look the way you'd like them to. Maybe you felt like you really look good today, and so your current look deserves to be immortalized, but alas - the resulting photo goes straight into the electronic trash and the annals of history. No, you're not uglier than you thought. The truth is, the camera can really distort a lot. If you take a picture on your phone's front-facing camera from a few tens of centimetres away - as you're used to in a selfie - and compare it to an identical photo someone takes from afar and zooms in on you, you'll find that the outputs are very different indeed.
When you take a selfie, the camera doesn't handle things as well as you might want it to at that close of a distance, so it often distorts the image. For example, it makes the nose appear much bigger. That's because it's closer to the camera than the rest of the face. Mustard says that this is what drives the demand for plastic surgery: people care enough about how they look on their mobile phone's front camera to make it worth adjusting, even though they might not have considered plastic surgery otherwise.
Mirror, mirror...
Having a good relationship with a mirror is quite a task. Anyone who has never found anything in their reflection that they don't like is a lucky man and one of the few. Sometimes all we really need is an unflattering light and there's a problem: we feel unattractive, unattractive and unshapely. The truth is that mirrors are really very sensitive not only to lighting, but also to placement or shape. Some even expand or otherwise distort reality a little.
If you don't believe that your mirror is too strict with you, try an experiment that has been done, for example, by Russian blogger Inna and has been the subject of more than one report. Just walk around the mall and take an identical photo in each of the booths. At the end of the day, you'll see that you'll have a gallery full of photos of you looking (un)pretty in different ways. It's all the fault of the light, the placement of the mirror, and possibly sometimes its not-quite-honest depiction of reality. In the extreme, you can try looking at yourself in really badly distorted mirrors in the mirror maze in Petřín. It's the same principle.
So Mustard advises limited contact with the mirror. Of course, you can use it to make adjustments and make sure everything is in order - no spinach between your teeth, or a sign on your forehead that screams, "It doesn't look good on me!" Because the longer we look at ourselves, the more we tend to look for flaws and imperfections. We start to pick at the pimples on our faces, we start to ruffle our hair, we pull in our stomachs or we start to stand on our tiptoes in an attempt to look taller and slimmer. This is not the best way to convince our fragile souls that we believe in our outer beauty.
Hormones
Do you think hormone fluctuations are just about the menstrual cycle? Oh, no. Of course, periods pretty honestly take care of bad moods and sensitivities. And yes, they can also cause acne, which makes a real difference to how we look. Sometimes we even get puffy or can't get rid of under-eye circles after a sleepless night due to the pain. But hormones can equally flare up after alcohol, stress or even various illnesses. The possibilities abound. It is hormones that not only influence the changes that actually happen to our body (and therefore our appearance), but also have to do with our impressions and perceptions.
Social media
We used to be haunted by print magazines with perfect models, but nowadays we have not only daily but every spare moment on our plate that there are amazing and beautiful internet starlets in the world. Moreover, these people are often masterful at retouching and editing photos and videos. Bottom line, they are hard to match and their self-esteem takes a beating. But what to do? Throw away the cell phone? Mustard advises to have the same relationship with social media as with a mirror: look, but don't stare. This saves us from putting too much pressure on ourselves when we analyze someone else's perfect picture in detail. Plus, we're all aware of how toxic the deepest waters of the comments section can be. If anyone can be truly vicious, it's the people behind the keyboard who aren't afraid to insult, ridicule and demean.
Our loved ones
It sounds harsh, but it's our loved ones who have an extreme influence on our perception of whether we're enough... whatever. If you live alongside a person who lets you know they don't like you, or your parents have been bugging you since you were a kid with their critical remarks about having fat thighs or three hairs in two rows, you'll certainly tend to hide your legs and your hair and be ashamed of them. As cruel as it sounds, such people need to be weaned. Or at least their influence. If possible, try asking them to act differently because their behavior is hurting you. If they won't give up their position, then you change the social environment. You may not be able to influence how others treat you, but you can choose not to be there.
