(Image source from: Analysis on selfies become very rich data source})
Data project revealed that analysis on selfies are ‘very rich’ data source revealing more than expected. Selfies reveal data about different cultures in different cities and illustrate the way people wanted to be perceived.
A team involving scientists, researchers and designers gathered 152,462 Instagram pictures, which were tagged around Somerset House of London over one week period. Facial recognition software was used to rank them as 1 for ‘most happy’ and 0 for the least one.
The analysis revealed that 0.55 was the score of London selfies, compared against 0.62 average across Berlin, Sao Paulo, New York, Moscow and Bangkok. As per the analysis from the images publicly uploaded on to Instagram in September, the selfie taking of London style was even a restrained upright pose.
Somerset House exhibitions director, Claire Catterall, said that the selfie has now become a key data piece for the documentation of an entire generation.
Catterall said, “What has been fascinating about this project is to see how we now quantify ourselves through this data we produce, we push ourselves out and how this has changed the way we communicate with each other.”
“The massive rise of the selfie just proves how visual we have become as a society. Even in the past five years it is already impacting on how we speak and communicate with each other on a person-to-person basis and that can be quite a frightening thing to consider,” she added.
Somerset House is the place where picture were taken. The analysis was the part of an exhibition that explored social media explosion. She said that the unhappy selfie faces of Londoners are not be mistaken for misery but “thinking they are too cool to smile.”
-Sumana
