Selfie loathing: are phone pics sending people to the dentist?

Isn’t that where most teeth can be found? Yes, although in this case, I’ve made clever use of ambiguity, because “selfie teeth” are often a figment of your imagination.

I see. So you are giving me a brief, lighthearted guide to something that doesn’t exist? I am. Look, people have recently started taking a lot more close-up photographs of their own faces, or using their phones as mirrors. Agreed?

With a slow, lugubrious sigh, yes. And some phone cameras are fitted with slightly weird lenses that make things close to them look inflated at the centre of the screen.

If you say so. And as a result, a lot of people think they have huge, horse-like teeth. “Teeth often look more protruding than they are in real life, which can also be emphasised by the light of the flash,” Dr Tim Bradstock-Smith told the Times.

Who’s he? Clinical director of something called the London Smile Clinic. “As teeth are at the centre of the image, people are understandably driven to make them look nicer,” he added.

“Understandably” is often just a nice way of saying “stupidly”, isn’t it? It is indeed. Anyway, Bradstock-Smith says that over the last five years he’s seen a 30% rise in people “sending in selfies with concerns about their front teeth”.

Interesting. Has he published his data? I mean that could just be four emails instead of three. No. Still, “when they come in, often the teeth don’t look too bad.” he says. “We dissuade two to three patients each week from treatment, and for many others, will recommend simple alignment of front teeth instead of major intervention.”

Wait a minute … so “many” of these people do actually end up paying to get their teeth fixed? Yup. “The two front teeth look good being a little more dominant, with a step in length between these and the next two,” Bradstock-Smith explains. “It creates a ‘smile curve’ and it’s a natural, feminine appearance.”

I’m confused. Are selfies making people needlessly anxious about their appearance, or helping them to spot defects they’d never seen before? Who says it can’t be both?

Do say: “I promise that your teeth do not make you look ugly.”

Don’t say: “It’s more of a whole-face issue.”

Resource: http://www.theguardian.com