A few months ago, an article in The Adobo Chronicles invaded the web and made society question whether or not they should consider themselves safe from their own selfies.

The article centered upon the jarring revelation that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had defined selfie-taking as a serious mental disorder. If you find it hard to believe that the APA would actually add a disease, called selfitis, to their books, that’s because it is. While we may occasionally poke fun at our selfie-obsessed friends and suggest that they get psychiatric help for their condition, the concept of Selfitis was quickly revealed to be nothing more than another online hoax.

Understanding the motives behind Adobo’s storytelling is not the issue here. With the popularity of satirical sites like The Onion and The Daily Show Online, it’s no surprise that this particular hoax captured our attention and spread across the web like wildfire. The real issue is discerning what the huge level of controversy and attention that the concept attracted says about our generation’s relationship with the selfie. 

The concerned reactions to selfitis demonstrate how easy it is for our generation to imagine a world where selfie-taking results in full-blown mental disorders. These reactions speak to our understanding that selfie-taking can – and often does –become a meticulous, unhealthy process. 

After making sure that our every hair is in place, our smiles polished, our muscles flexed or tummy tucked, it can be exhausting to flip our smart phones back around and find a less-than-satisfactory version of ourselves staring back. Flash after numerous flash, many of us can attest to coming away from our own personal photo shoots annoyed and empty-handed. 

But, by what standards are our efforts fruitless? Whose metaphorical picture frame are we trying to fit ourselves into? Often, it is our own. While there is no doubt that the media asks us to hold ourselves to highly unrealistic standards, it is we who decide to concern ourselves with, or ignore, these expectations. 

If we take selfies to impress others and get angry when we can’t achieve photographic “perfection,” then The Adobo Chronicles may have had a good point in calling the selfie phenomenon problematic. However, if selfies serve as an outlet for self-expression, saying they cause selfitis might be way off. If sharing selfies with our friends allows us to achieve a sense of helathy appreciation and recognition, we might even call the process therapeutic. 

It is beyond frustrating to hear other generations call our selfie-taking habits mentally unstable. More than that, it is unfair to have others define the selfie experience we as millennials created. It is up to us to take back the selfie. We need to redefine what it has come to represent for us as a generation – a means to connect, interact and, above all else, a symbol of the one thing we know best – ourselves.