A NEW psychological condition has been discovered - and recognised as genuine by experts. It is called "selfitis" and is the obsessive need to post selfies online.

I know plenty of people who I reckon are sufferers of this mental disorder. I say it's a new condition - but it was first reported in 2014, albeit in a spoof report from some American academics. But as is so often the case these days, the joke has turned - and academic researchers in the UK and India have now confirmed that selfitis really does exist.

It comes in three stages, apparently: borderline (taking photos of oneself at least three times a day but not posting online); acute (posting said selfies on social media); and chronic, which is the uncontrollable urge to take photos of oneself constantly and to post on social media more than six times a day.

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a handful of people who easily fit into the acute category of selfitis. Those of us who use social media - however sporadically - will have online friends who are incapable of posting a photo which doesn't feature themselves in it. One person springs to mind in my list of friends who posts pictures galore on social media - and a good 99 per cent of them are of her posing and pouting.

I genuinely fail to understand why so many people - largely females, it must be said - spend so much time taking "I love me" photos of themselves and inflicting them upon their family, friends and acquaintances. Social media is good for a lot of things (personally, I have my doubts, but I'm clearly in a minority on this) but its facilitating of self-obsession is hugely to its - and indeed, to society in general's - detriment.

The selfie pout appears to be peculiar to the female of the species. Males don't suffer from the same need to pucker their lips and adopt a sultry expression for the camera, but way, way, too many girls and women do. I find it unbelievably irritating and never cease to wonder why so many females so sheepishly adopt the same pose. People don't usually pout when someone points a camera at them for a group shot - so why do it just because you're staring into the lens of your own smartphone?

Of course, these days, so many users of social media feel pressured to keep posting photos of themselves in order to gain the approval of their friends. The "need" to get as many likes as possible for online posts is surely one of the most addiction-inducing aspects of social media, with young people particularly experiencing feelings of anxiety and isolation if they feel they aren't getting enough attention via social media. Social media has created a generation of young people for whom the virtual world is more real than the world that is physically around them. Everything revolves around what is going on on the screen in front of them - and that cannot, simply cannot, be a good thing.

Thanks to social media, users have been able to give themselves the starring role in their own life story. Every event, new dress, inane thought, minor triumph or trivial mishap is deemed worthy of sharing with people who are often merely peripheral characters in our lives. Social media "addicts" (for want of a better term) really do find themselves utterly fascinating. And the selfie has come to epitomise the narcissism that is increasingly a part and parcel of social media usage. Earlier this year, I wrote in despair about a visitor at Auschwitz-Birkenau standing in front of a cattle truck taking a grinning selfie, no doubt to post online. That, to me, represents the nadir of social media usage. And it is depressingly common.

Selfitis having been identified and accepted, it is inevitable that more and more "sufferers" will become apparent. We all know some already. But just as with many other addictions, it is the addicts themselves who are the last to admit they have a problem. Until they do, we must all resign ourselves to the prospect of our selfie-obsessed online friends and acquaintances pouting and posing as if their lives depended on it.

WITH well under a week to go to the big day, festive stress has properly set in for me - and I've no-one to blame but myself. Not a card written, not a present bought, not a Brussels sprout sourced.

It had all started so well this year, too. I was unprecedentedly out of the starting blocks early, having procured my Christmas tree on December 5. I hadn't meant to, it was just that I found myself having lunch in a garden centre, and the sight of all those fir trees was just too much: I had one chosen, netted, carted home and erected on the stairs within the hour, without so much as the annual argument with my husband regarding the size of said tree.

That was my first mistake, with hindsight. Having got my tree up early, I lulled myself into a false sense of security - every time I saw the tree with its lights glowing, and admired my festive fireplaces, I subconsciously assumed I was ready for Christmas. Well, I'm not. Which is why for the next few days, I'll be dementedly searching for people's addresses, whinging about the exorbitant cost of second class stamps, and panic-buying perfume sets, novelty beers and other unimaginative tat that is the last resort of the disorganised Christmas shopper.

I wonder if it's too late to get an appointment with my doctor - I could do with a sick note excusing me from Christmas. But I bet even Santa Claus himself couldn't sort that one.

On that festive note, I'd like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and new year.

IS anyone surprised that yet another athletics doping scandal has reared its head? This week, American sprinter Justin Gatlin (who infamously robbed Usain Bolt of a gloriously gold swan song at this year's World Championships in London) has found himself embroiled in a new doping controversy. He strenuously denies any involvement.

Nevertheless, an in-depth investigation by The Telegraph has revealed the shock-horror news that drug use in the sporting world is widespread. You would think that with the amount of testing going on, the sporting world would give up on the whole performance-enhancing drugs thing. I know someone who works for the British Anti Doping Association and they are kept very busy indeed testing athletes from every conceivable sport. And yet, still it goes on, as athletes galore are prepared to run the risk of public shame and ignominy in order to get that - often infinitesimal - edge over their competitors.

Just as well doping isn't so rife when it comes to more everyday occupations. Imagine if we were all at it with the performance-enhancing substances. Much as it would make for, say, faster service at the drive-thru or pub pints poured in record-breaking times, the whole doping thing is just so unseemly. Crikey, is that the time? If I don't get a wiggle on, I'm going to miss my copy deadline. Now, where did I put those steroids...?