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"Do the Olds have a point when they bemoan our generation&amp;#039;&#146;s inability to make it through a meal, a party, or even a sentence without glancing at a screen? Sure. But we&amp;#039;re starting to suspect that all that Snapchatting may be supporting a certain vein of social change that we can all get behind. Take, for example, the new Miss Idaho, Sierra Sandison. The 20-year-old stepped out onstage July 12th in the requisite bikini &#151; and an insulin pump, because Sandison is a Type 1 diabetic. Though she used insulin injections when she first began competing, she credits her decision to compete with her pump visible to the increased comfort level she feels thanks to social media&#151; \u2014 and was richly rewarded with an outpouring of Facebook love from strangers all over. Perhaps she was inspired by 23-year-old Bethany Townsend, whose bikini-clad selfie with her colostomy bag in full view quickly became a viral sensation \u2014 and Townsend became an Internet hero for the Crohn&amp;#039;&#146;s disease community. It&#146;&amp;#039;s hard to imagine a condition that&amp;#039;&#146;s more difficult to make sexy, but this millennial? She made it happen with one confident snap of an iPhone. Could the rise of the selfie be ushering in a new level of openness and acceptance? Let&#146;&amp;#039;s hope so.  Perhaps we can thank the warts-and-all reframing of what it means to be a public figure that we call reality TV. In a world where a wealthy Manhattan socialite with a graduate degree will throw her prosthetic leg at someone on national television, what on earth could we be afraid of exposing anymore? And with smartphones that put image creation in the palm of every individual&amp;#039;&#146;s hand, along with the social media platforms to share those images on, we&amp;#039;re surfing the cresting wave of millions of images created by millions of individuals who&amp;#039;&#146;ve seen since birth that everyone really does get to be famous for 15 minutes. The selfie trend is one that makes sense for young people. Writing for Psychology Today, Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., posits that selfies are &#147;ripe for exploration and identity experimentation, particularly among ages where identity formation and emancipation are key developmental tasks as well as for those who are still interested in looking at themselves.&#148; So expect more Sierras. Expect more Bethanys. Expect more women like Samm Newman, who suffers from no disability except a lack of respect from her fellow humans&#151; \u2014 but is determined to overcome that too. This is a generation of young women who, yes, may be damaging themselves by the constant exposure to criticism, but who are also learning in their teen years something it took older women years longer to learn: the fine art of fighting back against shame. They&#146;&amp;#039;re here. They&amp;#039;&#146;re clear. And they&amp;#039;&#146;re armed and ready to change how you see them for good. Related on ELLE: The 30 Most Inspiring Women You Need to Follow on Social Media Cara Delevingne Just Took the First Runway Selfie Joe Biden Posts Ultimate Inaugural Selfie "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a29253/the-secret-gift-of-generation-selfie/>