5.0 Why do Asians love taking selfie?

As to why Asians love taking selfie, I believe longer working hours compared to westerners plays an influential role. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) data shows that Asian countries tend to work the longest hours, they also have the highest proportion of workers that are working excessively long hours of more than 48 hours a week. It tends to be normal for developing countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka to have longer working hours. European countries like UK, Germany and Netherlands occupy the bottom of the list. This is due the reason that developed countries have stricter labour laws to make sure employees are not exploited. However, The United States is the only developed country that has no legal or statutory requirement to administer any minimum amount of annual leave. That is why a British worker work averagely 150 fewer hours than an American.

The database of cities where selfies are most popular by TIME magazine(mentioned in previous post) somehow corresponds to the working hours in different countries. Among the top 10 cities, American cities where no labour law on working hours is implemented took the second, third and forth place. Developing country- Philippines, crowned the first and also ninth place, the other two cities from Malaysia occupied the fifth and tenth place. While developed countries England and Italy with tight labour laws took the seventh and eighth place each. Israel, also a developed country considered by OEDC took the sixth place. Briefly speaking, this list proves that countries with longer working hours contributes to the higher popularity of selfies. The long working hours in Asians diminishes the time for them to have fun and explore things outside of work. Their lives are probably too mundane to the point that either any little things become moments worth recording, or anything new become something big worth taking selfie with to show off.

Another theory that is apt to explain why Asians love selfie more would be the Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions View mentioned in class. This is a theory that examines self in relations to individualism and collectivism. Generally speaking, individualism emphasizes on personal accomplishment, independence and autonomy. Collectivism focuses more on interdependence, group harmony and belonging to certain groups. In Hofstede's Individualism Index, scores are listed for 76 countries; individualism tends to prevail in developed and Western countries, while collectivism prevail in less developed and Eastern countries (Hofstede, 2011). The collectivism culture is probably why selfie is so recognized among Asians. They have the tendency to do the same as others or follow trends to feel belonged to a group. This theory also rationalize the findings by TIME (mentioned in previous post) where most young Asians who make the V-sign in photos do so without thinking and are confounded when asked why they do it.




References:

Stephenson, W. (2012). Who works the longest hours?. BBC News, [online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18144319 [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].

Wilson, C.(2014). The Selfiest Cities in the World: TIME’s Definitive Ranking. TIME [online]. Available at: http://time.com/selfies-cities-world-rankings/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].


Hofstede, G.(2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures. The Hofstede's Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture. p.12 [pdf] Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=orpc [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].