My Sunday mornings consist of waking up, getting a cup of coffee (peppermint mocha…obviously) and sifting through Saturday’s tweets, grams and reblogs. The day’s most prevalent hashtag? #SelfieSaturday (and sometimes #SelfieSunday in a football jersey if you get fancy). For people who take pictures of themselves and post them, some even daily, I have to pose the question—are we just obsessed with ourselves?

The egotistical view of selfies is not a new claim. Chris Gayomali at The Week stated selfies “reflect the narcissism of our age.” As we prep ourselves in front of our iPhone cameras then filter away to make the image Instagram appropriate, the thought becomes slightly odd. Think about it. We do our hair and make-up, put on a pretty top, and find a lighted area in our house . . . to take pictures . . . of ourselves. Then, if you proceed to post these pictures, people assume you are looking for compliments.

Are there other reasons we post pictures? Author Ned Hepburn claims he takes selfies to document himself, while Jaclyn Anthony, a photojournalist for The Lincoln Times in Lincolnton, North Carolina, explains that she takes them to show off the fun work she does during the day. Personally, I take selfies because it is fun. Its lacking seriousness makes it seem less narcisstic of me. It allows you to be screaming for attention even though everyone views it as a joke. The idea around selfies, that it makes you obsessed with yourself, lies in the frequency of your posts. Every month? Sweet, you have enough confidence in yourself that you joke around every so often. Every week? Eh . . . maybe tone it down. Every day? Okay, you should probably get professional help.

Selfies come in all shapes and sizes. Between the infamous “duck face,” where you pout your lips as if you have Pringles in your mouth to the “mirror pic,” where your face is blurred from the flash of your iPhone, your selfie style says a lot about you. These different types showcase the effort, as well as the aura you put around yourself. A blurred out photograph in which I cannot see your face says to me you lack self-confidence, while a guy’s “ab shot” epitomizes arrogance. While you may not actually feel this way, the way you act in these selfies puts off that persona. If I see someone smiling and being with their friends, I assume their just sharing the moments they feel genuinely happy through social networking.

Bottom line: I view selfies as a way to express myself…literally. If you feel down, make a sad face. If that AP history test is killing you, pull your hair out (do not actually do that). Do not sit and smile and be happy unless you are. A selfie’s worth a thousand words…so make it count, but do not post twenty thousand words on a daily basis.