When you let a mouse take a selfie, it gradually becomes addicted to the act of pressing the shutter.

An artist's experimental work has shown that when he created a selfie booth for rats, the rats gradually became addicted to taking selfies and continued to take pictures even without reward.

Selfie Rats — AUGUSTIN LIGNIER

Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media | CBC Radio

French artist Augustin Linier placed two male rats he bought at a pet store in a Skinner box designed by behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner to conduct learning experiments on rats. I named them Augustin and Arthur after myself and my younger brother.

The box containing Augustin and Arthur was equipped with a device that would take a selfie when you pressed a lever, and at first, when you pressed the lever, sugar would come out. Once the two animals got used to the situation, the sugar was changed so that sometimes it came out and sometimes it didn't.

However, Augustin and Arthur said that they would press the shutter lever even when sugar did not come out.

Mr. Linier named this mechanism itself as an installation work 'Selfie Rat' and announced it in 2021.

Mr. Linier said that the two animals continued to press the shutter, saying, ``They had come to derive pleasure from pressing the lever,'' and that ``likes'' and other forms of engagement were the initial motivation. He said that this work depicts similarities in how humans use SNS.

In addition, two of the animals were able to be seen in the self-portrait, but according to Linier, the two did not recognize themselves, and even though they were interested in the act of pressing the lever, It seems that he was not interested in the selfie itself.

After the presentation of their work, Augustin and Arthur were sent to live with Linier's mother in the south of France, where they lived peacefully, and their bodies were buried side by side in the garden.