By Kenny Sokan, News Correspondent

Is posting a selfie on social media fishing for compliments, and are those compliments helpful or detrimental?

Last month, an NBC Today and AOL’s “Ideal to Real Body Image” survey revealed that that 65 percent of teenage girls said that seeing their selfies on social media raised their self-esteem, while 55 percent reported feeling “selfie-conscious.”

The survey examined how Americans feel about the way they look and the influence of social media on self esteem. It was conducted online from Jan. 24 – 31 and taken by a nationally representative sample size of 2,059 people, ages 18 and older and 200 teens aged 16-17.

Jonathan Rudiger, a clinical psychologist at the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs, said that the fundamental way individuals develop self-esteem is feedback – a give-and-take of positive and negative response.

“In large part, self-esteem is developed through social interactions, specifically the feedback we receive from others,” Rudiger said. “The first feedback we receive is typically from the mother and father. As we grow up, we start to receive feedback from many different acquaintances.”

Rudiger called this feedback a “mirror to the self.” Positive response to one’s appearance – behavior, personality, etc. – will, in return, help develop positive self-image. Similarly receiving negative feedback, plants the seed for negative self-image – a sense of inadequacy and inferiority.

Clive Thompson, a technology writer and author of “Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better,” told the New York Times last October that selfies are a way for people to see from a lens other than their own eyes.

“Taking a photograph is a way of trying to understand how people see you, who you are and what you look like, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he told the Times.

Dunia Kassay, a middler psychology major, said that her artistically-expressive selfies gives her an opportunity to share how she sees herself and how she wants to be seen by others.

“I feel like you see what I’m seeing,” she said.

Kathryn Gordon, an assistant professor of psychology at North Dakota University, said that selfies are sometimes beneficial – they can validate what people already think about their own appearance.

“They can also possibly receive a short boost of positive self-esteem if they receive positive remarks about their appearance or photo-taking capabilities,” she said.

Rowan Cornell, a sophomore criminal justice major, said that she felt “self-confident” after receiving positive feedback on photos, especially when she changed her facebook profile picture to a selfie and received 90 likes.

“I’ve got to say, I felt pretty great seeing that. Did it control my day? Was I obsessively checking how many likes I’d gotten? No. But it was nice,” she said.

But Rudiger said that the new opportunity to receive feedback through social media has essentially created a breeding ground for competition and judgement.

“[It] makes a mirror in cyberspace that answers the question, ‘who is the fairest of all?’” he said, adding that teenage girls are more sensitive to negative feedback and may base their overall self-worth on the way think they look.

“It is very important that we not derive all of our self-worth from feedback about our appearance,” said Rudiger. “We must look deeper to understand our true value … Appearance is one aspect of the self, not the only aspect.”

Cornell agreed that students post selfies on social media to receive validation.

“Ultimately we all take selfies to see people’s reactions,” she said. “To see what people think of us, which I think is something we all constantly crave to know.”

It is this craving that worries Rudiger.

“My concern is that the immediate boost of self-esteem from feedback on a selfie is quite temporary,” he said. “And [that] may foster insecurity and an excessive need for attention in order to feel worthwhile.”