We’re all partial to the odd selfie. In 2017 we’re all at it, and ‘selfie’ is now a word firmly cemented in our vocab. It’s thought the average millennial will take up to 25,700 selfies in his or her lifetime.
So what does following ‘#Selfie’ on social media tell us about the state of the selfie in 2017? We crunched the data to find out where in the UK is most selfie-obsessed, when we’re taking them and just how this trend is unfolding.
When we took a look at the numbers, it was glaringly obvious that the likelihood of you reaching for your smartphone and snapping yourself depends on where exactly you live.
*Figures based on social media users who tag their location within posts
When we observed the use of the selfie hashtag on Twitter and Instagram, by people from every corner of the UK, we saw surprising variations from city to city. Take Plymouth for example, where only around nine people in a thousand shared a #selfie post over the last year, while 40 miles northeast Exeter residents shared #selfies at almost four times that rate.
Despite unusual local variations like these, some clear regional patterns did emerge among the top 30 most selfie-taking towns and cities in the UK. The south of England dominates, making up 50% of the top 30 and a whopping 65% of the top 20, proving southerners really can’t resist a #selfie. By comparison, communities in the north of England made up just seven of the top 30, and those in the Midlands only three.
Outside of England, the other home nations didn’t seem too fazed by the selfie trend. Cardiff came in at 18th, the only Welsh city to make the list, and Belfast 23rd as Northern Ireland’s lone #selfie sharing spot. Three Scottish locations edged their way into our top 30 – with Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen coming 19th, 26th and 28th respectively.
It does seem there’s some connection between living by the coast and selfie-taking, too. Of the top 30 most #selfie-loving towns and cities, half of them were on the coast or very close to it; with Dover, Penzance, Portsmouth, Blackpool and Brighton all making the top 10.
The other factor at play when it comes to our #selfie sharing habit is the time of day, and the day of the week.
It’ll come as no surprise that around a third of all selfies were taken at the weekend. Saturday slightly edged out Sunday, with 18.5% of all selfies shared that day. Thursday and Friday were equally popular with around 14.6% shared on each of these days across the year, while Wednesday was by far the least so. With less than 10% of all selfies taken on this day, it seems the midweek slump may well hit our desire to get the camera out.
Delving deeper, we can even pinpoint the exact time of day that we get snapping and sharing the most. The biggest peak comes during the early afternoon, with around a quarter of all selfies being taken between 12 noon and 4pm; perhaps because we’re taking advantage of the strongest sunlight. The 12 noon – 1pm hour was the busiest, suggesting a trend for secret selfie-taking when we head out on our lunch breaks. The evening sees a gradual uptick in #Selfies after a rush-hour lull, until 10pm when we begin to turn in, and selfie sharing plummets until the morning.
This means Saturday at 12pm is peak-selfie hour.
Despite the selfie being a common feature of modern life, the latest data suggests this trend may have actually peaked.
When we compiled data on how frequently ‘#Selfie’ is being used on Twitter and Instagram, we made the startling realisation that this is a trend very much on the way out. In March 2017, 797K #Selfie posts were shared by Brits. That might sound like a lot, but that compares with a whopping 1.34M in April of last year, representing a decrease of just over 40% in a year and 546K less selfies shared. Use of the tag fell 20% between the start and end of summer 2016 alone.
Just a few months into 2017, we’re already 28% down compared with last year’s totals.
There’s all manner of reasons why this could be happening. Perhaps we’re simply getting bored of applying a plethora of hashtags every time we post? Instagram continues to report a healthy increase in users, so it isn’t simply that we’re giving up on social media altogether. Could it be that the selfie has become such a staple of 2017 life that we don’t feel the need to hashtag it as such? Or maybe, just maybe, selfiemania really is over.
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