14 DAY TRIAL // The selfies craze almost killed a British teenager who became so obsessed with taking the perfect photo of himself that he attempted suicide because he didn't like any of his pictures.
After months of obsessively trying to take the perfect selfie, 19-year-old Danny Bowman attempted to kill himself by overdosing.
The boy, from Newcastle upon Tyne in Britain, spent 10 hours a day taking up to 200 pictures of himself on his iPhone, but none of them was perfect. He didn't leave the house for nearly six months, lost almost 13kg (28lb) and dropped out of school after his obsession got out of hand.
Danny started posting selfies on Facebook when he was 15. After he received some malicious comments on his photos, the teen started his weird quest to obtain the perfect shot. But the teen's selfie addiction worsened in 2011, when his ambition to be a male model shattered after being rejected by a modeling agency.
“My alarm went off and I would take 10 pictures before I had washed. Then I would take another 10 after showering and another 10 after moisturising.
“Then I would spend hours looking at them, scrutinising my features and skin. I took selfies in bed, in the bathroom, and all day into the early hours,” Danny told the Mirror.
Frustrated at his attempts to obtain the perfect selfie, he tried to commit suicide, but was saved by his mother, who took him to a psychiatrist.
“I was constantly in search of taking the perfect selfie and when I realized I couldn't, I wanted to die. I lost my friends, my education, my health and almost my life,” he confessed.
Doctors diagnosed Danny with body dysmorphic disorder, an excessive anxiety about personal appearance, and the boy has had therapy to treat his addiction. He is considered to be Britain’s first selfie addict.
The teen says that part of his treatment at the Maudsley Hospital in London involved taking away his iPhone for intervals of 10 minutes, which gradually increased to 30 minutes and an hour, as well as therapy to address the root cause of the problem.
Psychiatrists warn that the addiction to social media and to taking selfies is an illness and public health officials in UK say that more than 100 patients seek treatment every year.
“Danny’s case is particularly extreme. But this is a serious problem. It’s not a vanity issue. It’s a mental health one which has an extremely high suicide rate,” said Dr. David Veal, whose clinic helped the teenager part with his smartphone.