TORONTO – Which Canadians are the most guilty when it comes to participating in the adored (and widely hated) narcissistic practice of taking selfies? West Coast, we’re looking at you.
Social media users in Victoria, B.C., are the most selfie-obsessed cities in Canada, according to data compiled by TIME Magazine for an interactive feature of “The Selfiest Cities in the World.” Edmonton, Alta. was the second-most selfie-obsessed on the list.
A screenshot from TIME’s website shows the interactive map of the “Selfiest Cities in the World.”
Victoria’s Instagram users were the worst offenders in the nation, with 35 selfie-takers per 100,000 people. TIME spotted 146 selfies taken by 101 users in Victoria over the period of data collection.
Edmonton had 31 selfie-takers per 100,000 people and a total of 271 selfies by 218 users.
TIME built the database from over 400,000 Instagram photos that used the hashtag #selfie and provided geo-location tagging to prove what city it was taken in. The data was collected in two sets of five days, from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2 and March 3 to 7.
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In total TIME ranked over 459 cities, including eight Canadian locations.
But, TIME notes that the total number of selfies found only accounts for a fraction of all of the selfies taken during that period of time – noting that the majority of those using the hashtag #selfie did not use geographic coordinates. And not everyone who takes pictures of themselves tags their photo with the hashtag #selfie.
TIME did note in its findings that it attempted to search for international versions of the word “selfie,” but found very few results.
Canadians didn’t do too badly in the rankings, comparatively.
Victoria ranked 81st on the list of the top 100 most selfie-obsessed cities and Edmonton came in second to last at 98 on the list.
The countries capital was the next worst offender – Ottawa clocked in at 30 selfie-takers per 100,000 people, with a total of 309 selfies by 570 users. Winnipeg had 29 selfie-takers per 100,00 people and a grand total of 240 selfies by 186 users.
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Even selfie-takers in Toronto didn’t do too badly compared to other cities.
Torontonians had 20 selfie-takers per 100,000 people, but had a much higher total of 1232 selfies by 920 users.
Compare those numbers to the No. 1 most selfie-obsessed city – Makati City and Pasig, Philippines, who had a whopping 258 selfie-takers per 100,000 people – and Canadian’s seem much more down to earth.
But, perhaps we are just too polite to fill our friends’ Instagram feeds with duck-faced selfies.
Canadian cities, ranked by their selfie-taking obsession:
Victoria:
- Population: 289,625
- 146 selfies by 101 users
- 35 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Edmonton:
- Population: 712,391
- 274 selfies by 218 users
- 31 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Ottawa:
- Population: 812,129
- 309 selfies by 246 users
- 30 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Winnipeg:
- Population: 632,063
- 240 selfies by 186 users
- 29 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Halifax:
- Population: 359,111
- 133 selfies by 101 users
- 28 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Toronto:
- Population: 4,612,191
- 1232 selfies by 920 users
- 20 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Quebec City:
- Population: 528,595
- 123 selfies by 94 users
- 18 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
Montreal:
- Population: 3,268,513
- 797 selfies by 570 users
- 17 selfie-takers per 100,000 people
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