"Selfie Elbow" Is A Real Medical Thing Now

By Raakhee Mirchandani for Elle Magazine

Capturing the perfect selfie can be a real pain in the elbow. Seriously.

It's time to add "selfie elbow" to the growing list of problems your social media addiction is causing. Like tennis elbow or golfer's elbow—minus, you know, any actual exercise—a dedication to selfie-taking is landing people in the doctor's office.

Take Hoda Kotb, the award-winning journalist and co-anchor of the fourth hour of NBC's Today. Kotb's selfie love is well documented on Instagram—her 1,000-watt smile on display in selfies with everyone from her mom and her boyfriend to Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, and LL Cool J to a group of volleyball players from Long Island she met at the airport. There's no denying that Kotb doesn't just love selfies—she's mastered the perfect angle at which to take them, too (chin down, camera above the head, teeth showing in every shot). Turns out that beauty really is pain, because recently on Today she complained of an achy elbow.