For a few months last year, I was obsessed with my left eye. Before you ask: yes, I am aware of the concept of war and wars ongoing, and yes, I still cared a lot about my wonky eye. Every morning on my way to work, I would take a selfie on the train platform and recoil in horror at the result. I was hideous. My left eye was smaller than my right. Why weren’t babies wailing at me in the street?
It was a relief, then, when scientists from Stanford University’s department of computer science discovered last month that selfies distort our faces like a “funhouse mirror”. Plastic surgeon Boris Paskhover, who co-authored the study, found the average selfie – taken 12 inches from the face – alters a person’s looks, making their nose appear 30 per cent wider than it is in real life. Paskhover said this distortion could be a public health concern, as 55 per cent of American facial plastic surgeons have seen patients who wanted procedures to look better in selfies.
Content from our partners
