Just a few months after secretly deploying his app, Mr. Chawla discovered that 50 percent more people were following him on Instagram, and that he was also getting more invitations to parties and business opportunities. Instagram has since blocked his app.

“It’s such a low barrier to press ‘like,’ but I think people — I’m no exception — get obsessed with likes,” said Mr. Chawla, who lives in New York City and whose Instagram feed is exclusively selfies. “It’s an addictive drug. You get a taste of it, and then you want it more and more. People can tell you the precise moment they broke 100 likes.”

Of course, that is nothing compared to Kim Kardashian, who regularly tallies more than 800,000 likes for her selfies. And yet it’s pictures of her daughter that tend to top one million likes. This seems to support research by a group of behavioral scientists in England who found that people tend to report greater affinity for those who post more pictures of their friends and family than themselves.

That said, selfies can also be seen as simply another form of communication. After all, a text is only 160 characters but a picture is worth a thousand words. And many in the technology field argue that selfies are a source of empowerment because they grant individuals a high degree of control over how they present themselves to the world.

“We are so bombarded by media telling us how we should look and how we should be,” said Jacquelyn Morie, an immersive technologies entrepreneur and virtual reality researcher at the University of Southern California. “With selfies you have this authority and autonomy that you don’t have in other parts of your life.”

With body-slimming, skin-smoothing and age-defying filters and apps, people can make themselves look better than their true selves. The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery reports a marked increase in demand for cosmetic surgery as people become disappointed comparing their selfies with the images they see in the mirror.

Of course, selfies can also create a historical record of one’s life, if maybe a little better than reality. They show the world what you are doing and who you are with and how incredibly fun it all is. You often hear the refrain, “Pics or it didn’t happen.” This implies the corollary, “Selfies or you don’t exist,” which may explain some people’s compulsion to document their actions even if doing so diminishes their experience and engagement in the real world.