Dorchester Times: OUR VIEW: A Rant About Selfies

Thursday, January 1, 2015

OUR VIEW: A Rant About Selfies

We start 2015 with an observation.

The Dorchester Times staff has been using social media for about five months now -- long enough to know what all the buzz is about.

We admit we were missing a valuable method of connecting with new readers. But there are a few things we weren't missing -- primarily the so-called "selfies."

We've been a little surprised by how often (daily, in some cases) that a few people like sharing images of their own faces.

Now if you're under 21, we cut you some slack. Let's face it: in our teenage years, it's difficult to ever get too much mirror time. Even before the era of the smart phone, teens had been snapping photos of themselves. (See this famous selfie from the 1950s!)

But we note a British newspaper article reporting on scientists who say the growing trend of taking smartphone selfies is linked to mental health conditions that focus on a person's obsession with looks.

According to psychiatrist Dr David Veal: "Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take selfies."

The article goes on to tell the tale of one British teen who spent ten hours a day taking up to 200 snaps of himself on his iPhone. Part of his treatment at a psychiatric clinic included taking away his iPhone for intervals of 10 minutes, which increased to 30 minutes and then an hour.

Maybe that's being too harsh on those who frequently take and share their selfies.

Maybe it's evolution. Maybe it's an intelligent way to capture the daily (or hourly) aging process.

Or maybe it's time the Dorchester Times staff and editor take our own selfies and share them with the Facebook universe.

You know what? We are going to do just that. After all, we think of ourselves as incredibly beautiful people. Why not impose our mugs?

Those of you who follow us on Facebook, you will want to be watching for our selfies to be posted sometime today.

People will notice us. People will be talking. Yes, we are just that beautiful.

Happy 2015.

2 comments:

AnonymousJanuary 1, 2015 at 10:52 AM
Bahahahahahahahaha
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Don HoffmanJanuary 1, 2015 at 11:33 AM
A very nice, light-hearted start to the New Year. Keep up the good work and don't worry about those pictures. People have always taken loads of pictures of things that were special to them. I can remember sitting through endless 35mm slide shows and seeing bulging wallets full of new baby pictures. If the technology would have been there, I am sure we would have had selfies back then also. All of you with good memories can remember the instant Foto-Booths, where we put in a quarter and received 3 instant polaroid pictures of ourselves and perhaps a friend or two. In addition to the change in the way we take pictures, there is a major shift in the way we store and display pictures. If you had to pay for each selfie to be printed and buy albums to display them, I am sure the number would drop drastically. People like pictures of important stuff and what could be more important to you than YOU!
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."