Young man smartphone selfie

s18_ss_selfie_609506189_inline.jpg

Photography: 
Kues/Shutterstock.com

Everyone loves taking selfies, but they come at a price: they make our noses look bigger, or so it appears. The perception among selfie-lovers has brought a wave of inquiry into cosmetic surgery, with 55 percent of facial plastic surgeons reporting interest among prospective patients in 2017. “When [young adults] take a selfie, they are in essence looking into a portable funhouse mirror,” says Boris Paskhover RC’07, an assistant professor at New Jersey Medical School who specializes in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. He worked with Ohad Fried at Stanford to develop a computer model that shows nasal distortion caused by photos. Their findings, published in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, reveal that the average selfie makes the nasal base appear approximately 30 percent wider than if the photograph were taken at a distance of five feet.