TAMPA, Fla. — Toss your cap. Turn your tassel. Just don’t snap a selfie.
Graduates at the University of South Florida and Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., have been asked to refrain from taking self-portraits with their cellphones as they collect their diplomas.
The seemingly simple directive is standing out for placing the slightest curtailment on a collective societal march toward sharing every waking moment on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the like.
Neither USF nor Bryant has issued a blanket ban on selfies. Students are free to take them throughout the ceremony, just not on stage.
Sheila Guay, the special events director at Bryant, said selfies would take away from the ceremony and ruin photos that family members try to capture.
“There is a time and place for them,” she said, “and here is not one of them.”
