New Study Says That Selfies Actually Distort Your Facial Features

• According to a new study by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, selfies actually distort what folks really look like.
• This is particularly important because a lot of people consider plastic surgery because they are unhappy with their selfies.
• One area of the face that’s particularly distorted is the nose, which often looks longer in selfies than in traditional photographs.

Some people will go to great lengths to get the perfect selfie, but it turns out no matter how hard they try, they really aren’t getting a true picture of what they actually look like.

According to a new study by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, selfies actually distort what folks really look like “introducing measurable distortions in the size and perception of facial features.” This is particularly important because a lot of people consider plastic surgery because they are unhappy with their selfies. 

One area of the face that’s particularly distorted is the nose, which often looks longer in selfies than in traditional photographs. They discovered this by taking three photos of 30 volunteers, two using a smartphone camera very close up to mimic a selfie from different angles, and a third from five feet away using a single lens camera. All pictures were taken in the same area under the same light. They were then studied for distortions in facial measurements in the nose, lip, chin, and facial width.

The distortions in the selfies were pretty apparent, with the average nose appearing 6.4% longer in a selfie from 12 inches away, and 4.3% longer in one 18-inches away. There were also significant distortions in the length of the chin, throwing off the nose-to chin ratio, plus they made the nose appear wider.

While this may not seem like such a big deal, considering nose reshaping is the most common plastic surgery each year, it could suggest that selfies are falsely making people unhappy with their noses. 

Source: Study Finds