The mobile phone accessory has been making headlines internationally, showing up at tourist hot spots where sightseers want the best possible angle. But waving a phone about on an extendable arm could earn you the ire of other travellers one commentator has warned.

Professor Deborah Lupton of the University of Canberra said it was difficult to predict whether the stick would be popular long term because new technology was always accompanied by hype.

"It could be very intrusive in terms of the size of them and the fact you can imagine people waving them around to get the best shot and whacking other people with them," she said.

"This is the latter day tripod, which has been disappearing in recent times."

Professor Lupton said it was tempting to regard selfies as an expression of narcissism but there was more going on under the surface.

"In a more considered version, this is another development in the way we have taken pictures of ourselves over the time photography has existed," she said.

"People are recording their lives more and more whether it's an image of the coffee they just drank or the food they are eating.

"People are documenting their running routes using technology and their bike rides and then comparing it to other people, which can get competitive. Technology that focuses on the self is getting used more and more.

"Whether it's how many selfies you take today, it is all part of the constellation of the digitalisation of the self and this stick is contributing to the uploading of the digitised self."

Professor Lupton said people sometimes resented new technology if they thought it encroached on their privacy.

"However, there are a lot of people who are posting their own birth videos on YouTube, which is incredibly personal," she said.

"It is like the modern 'dear diary' but it's also a much more public version of that."