In today's digital world, screen time is increasingly more important than face time.

That being the case, do take the greatest of care in choosing that one photo of you that gives the online world the great first impression you want to give.

And, yes, there's science behind taking a great selfie.

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Researchers at the Department of Psychology at the University of York in the city of York in England said the impressions we create through images of our faces via selfies or avatars are becoming more important since we increasingly meet new persons online rather than in person.

This being the case, it becomes vital to create a great first impression with your photos.

In their study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), researchers claim to have discovered the facial features a person associates with social judgments about dominance, approachability and youthful attractiveness.

PNAS is the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences.

They said their study shows it's possible to accurately predict first impressions by using measurements of physical features in images of faces such as those found on social media sites.

According to them, every time we look at a picture of a face we quickly form judgments about a person's character. We try to guess whether this new acquaintance is friendly, trustworthy or competent.

These crucial first impressions might be wrong but they do influence our subsequent behavior towards that individual. First impressions are created by three distinct dimensions, said the researchers:

• Approachability (Does this person want to help or harm me?)
• Dominance (Can this person help or harm me?)
• Youthful-attractiveness (Will this person make a good romantic partner or mate?)

Previous research has shown that our judgments can be reduced to these three distinct dimensions.

To arrive at these conclusions, researchers took photos from the Internet and analyzed physical features of the faces to create a model that could accurately predict first impressions.

The research team then analyzed hundreds of data points on each the 1,000 faces they worked with. Each face was classified in terms of 65 different features.

Combining these measures yielded a model that could explain more than half of the variation in human raters' social judgments of the same faces.

The results allowed researchers to create new cartoon-like faces that produced predictable first impressions in a new set of judges.

These images also illustrate facial features associated with particular social judgments.

And how does this information help you take selfies that reflect the real you?

By turning your head in different directions, you can create small changes in the dimensions of your face that can make you appear more attractive, trustworthy or dominant.

Just practice until you get it perfect.

The illustration on this page will help you get it right.