Come on, clearly the right side of this chart with the upward-bound line should be the side with acne. This must have been done by one of those *sexy* chart-makers.

Of course, of COURSE I clicked on this Atlantic article about a study that says teens with acne do better in school. How could you not want science to tell you it was all worth it?

Mialon and Nesson found that having acne in high school was associated with a higher overall GPA—as well as a greater likelihood of earning an A in math, science, history and social studies, and English—and a higher chance of earning a bachelor’s degree. The academic differences between teens with skin problems and those without them weren’t dramatic, but they were statistically significant. For example, acne increases a student’s chances of getting an A in science by 1.8 percentage points.

Now that that’s settled, it did make me think back to my high school self. And college. And early professional self. And current self…

But no, the point was, I started to wonder what might have changed if I had been acne-free (or taller, stronger, thinner, etc). Which is a much more interesting, less scientific, line of inquiry.

How do you think you would have turned out differently if you’d been, say 30% more attractive throughout your life?

Do you think that you’d rather have that life, or do you like what you went through, and where you ended up, just the way you are?

Not addressed: all those downward-facing photos with feet poking into frame.

Rarely do I feel my mind changing dramatically in real time. This was one of those moments.

I, like many, looked at obsessive selfie-takers with contempt. “So self-absorbed. How can a person enjoy the world around them if they’re only ever looking at themselves? If someone’s highest priority is posting images to show off the curated version of their life they want to represent online, aren’t they simultaneously cutting themselves off from truly engaging with that very life in the world as it happens?”

This (quite) long and well-reasoned argument from Medium entitled simply “Selfie” may take a while to read, but is full of passionate (and convincing) reasons that I was simply wrong. That selfie-taking is more about learning to love oneself, and take control of the way we are seen by the world. It’s powerful stuff.

Here’s the secret: Nothing destabilizes power more than an individual that knows his or her own worth, and the campaign against selfies is ultimately a crusade against widespread self-esteem. What selfie-haters fear, deep down, is a growing army of faces they cannot monitor, an army who does not need their approval to march ahead. They fear the young, the technologically savvy, the connected… so these selfie-haters want to silence and erase the faces they don’t understand. It is that simple. Anyone who hates selfies outright is likely in the position of privilege to never have felt invisible. They fail to perceive the value that a new way of seeing can bring to so many lives.

This article gets one of my very highest recommendations for provoking conversation on a topic that I’m guessing has very entrenched stances on either side.

Forcing yourself to consider selfies as a socially empowering and positive tool, how does that change how you see other people taking selfies?

How might it change your own behavior around taking and posting your own?

Or if you don’t buy into this argument at all, what’s your best explanation for the rise of the selfie? What needs are being met, what social role do these images play?