GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) – Ready, pose, smile, click, discard, redo: Your latest selfie is now in much sharper focus, and you take a lot of them. Clearly, we now see this is a reflection of our self-images.
In fact, a new survey tells us, North Carolinians take 1.87 selfies per week (about one every three days), which is 25% more than the national average (1.5) and the ninth most of all states surveyed.
This was a survey of 2,302 people conducted by the experts at North Star Inbound for Shine Smile Veneers, the cosmetic dental outfit. The data don’t include Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Vermont or Wyoming, because of insufficient responses. We don’t know anything else about methodology.
Otherwise, though, the facts are clear: Women take about 50% more selfies than men, except among older Baby Boomers, and Gen Z women by far take the most (an average of 4.08 per week).
On average, the top states for selfies per week are Illinois (3.58), New York (3.25), Massachusetts (2.44) and Oregon (2.42). That makes us feel better about our 1.87, because it’s about half as many as Illinois.
The research also revealed that most often selfies are taken in front of the bathroom mirror (72%) or in a car (71%), which probably includes another type of mirror. The “changing room” was No. 4 (31%). Yes, we should pause to reflect about mirrors.
But then the survey says this: 35% of respondents – this number sounds suspect to us – “say they edit out selfies with unflattering aspects of their appearance.”
Think about that. If you have pointed a camera at your face – or some part of you – and snapped, you might wonder if that percentage possibly could be right.
Who wouldn’t edit out the unflattering? After all, half of us have used filters in this process. (Paging Kari Lake.)
But in North Carolina, we are even more aggressive at times. More than 1 in 10 of us (11%) admit we’ve shot selfies at our gyms (13th most nationally) – Georgia and Texas (24%) were leaders in the gym – and 5% admit we have posted (we assume to social media) photos of our butts.
Believe it or not, there were nine states where respondents said they showed their hind ends more often than we did in North Carolina. You can edit that sentence as you see fit.
The national average for “belfies,” as they have been coined, is 9%. Our friends in South Carolina, Alabama and New York (17%) took the most butt shots. Arizona, Arkansas and Michigan (15%) turned more cheeks, too.
But here is our next suspect number: Only about 1 in 10 people say they “regretted taking a selfie.”
We’re just glad the survey didn’t include more body parts. That we would regret.
