LONDON -- The majority of your Instagram feed is probably selfies, whether they're sultry pouts or smiley head tilts. You don't typically see sad selfies.
But a new survey has revealed that Londoners take the most miserable selfies in the world.
A project commissioned by Somerset House for its Big Bang Data exhibition compares selfies taken in London to ones taken in five other major cities: Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York and São Paulo, Brazil. Researchers used face analysis software ReKognition to estimate happiness levels in the photos and found London's average to be lower than the global average on the software's happiness scale.
Results also show that Londoners prefer more restrained, upright poses; they opt for a 15-degree head turn angle, as opposed to the 20-degree average in other cities. Selfies in London also tend to have more people wearing eyeglasses.
The average age for male selfies in London is slightly higher, too -- 28 years old compared to 26 in other cities, the study stated.
The survey analysed a subset of 640 selfies from an overall sample of 150,000 images, and compared the images based on age, gender and facial features including smiles and spectacles. A further investigation was undertaken to analyze factors such as emotional expression and physical poses, as well as gender and age estimates.
“Considering that young Londoners face challenges such as rising property prices and highly competitive job markets, the fact that Londoners are a little older and not always jumping for joy is perhaps not so surprising," said Dr. Lev Manovich, professor at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Manovich is one of the co-creators of the selfie project.
"It's interesting to see that Londoners are more honest and they’re not painting an alternate perfect picture on social media, which can often be the case.”
Chin up, London!