Advertisement
Advertisement
Social media
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Chinese rooftopping star Wu Yongning posted nearly 300 videos showing his daredevil exploits on buildings across China until he fell to his death from a 52-floor building in Changsha. Photo: 163.com

More than 250 people worldwide have died taking selfies, study finds

Researchers suggest creating ‘no selfie zones’ banning them in certain areas such as near bodies of water, on mountain peaks and tops of tall buildings

Social media

The next time you are standing at the edge of a scenic cliff or on top of a waterfall, take care when you have the urge to snap a quick selfie. It could be the last thing you do.

More than 250 people worldwide have died taking selfies in the last six years, according to a new study from researchers associated with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a group of public medical colleges based in New Delhi. The findings, which analysed news reports of the 259 selfie-related deaths from October 2011 to November 2017, were published in the July-August edition of the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.

Researchers found the leading cause of death to be drowning, followed by incidents involving transport – for example, taking a selfie in front of an oncoming train – and falling from heights. Other causes of selfie-related death include animals, firearms and electrocution.

“The selfie deaths have become a major public health problem,” said Agam Bansal, the study’s lead author.

Though the study found India to have the highest number of deaths of all countries, numerous reports of fatal selfie incidents have also come from Russia, the United States and Pakistan. Bansal noted that while the simple act of taking a selfie isn’t deadly, the hazard arises when people take risks while trying to get that perfect shot.

Mohammad Alishan, a performer from India’s eastern state of Jharkhand, performs a stunt as he drives a car on a ‘wall of death’ at a fair in Srinagar. Photo: Reuters

“What worries me the most is that it is a preventable cause of death,” he said. “Taking a toll on these many numbers just because you want a perfect selfie because you want a lot of likes, shares on Facebook, Twitter or other social media, I don’t think this is worth compromising a life for such a thing.”

Bansal said he was also concerned about how many of the selfie-related fatalities involved young people. More than 85 per cent of the victims were between the ages of 10 and 30, he said.

Late British daredevil Terry Forrestal. Photo: handout

While the number of deaths reported in the study may seem high, Bansal said there could be many more that just have not been documented due to issues with reporting.

In 2018 alone, there have already been several selfie-related deaths. In May, a man in India tried to take a selfie with an injured bear and was mauled to death, The Independent reported.

On September 5, an 18-year-old hiker from Jerusalem died after falling off a cliff at Yosemite National Park, according to ABC News. The man’s mother said he had been trying to take a selfie at the edge of Nevada Fall, a popular waterfall, when he fell, The Times of Israel reported.

Roughly two weeks later, a 32-year-old California woman met a similar fate while hiking at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan when she slipped and fell to her death after stopping at the edge of a cliff to snap some selfies, Detroit Free Press reported.

Chinese tourists fell into the water after a bridge in Chenzhou, Hunan province, gave way. It was apparently caused by a tourist blocking the way while taking a selfie. Photo: wemedia.ifeng.com

Mohit Jain, an orthopaedic surgeon who has also researched selfie deaths, described the work of Banal and fellow researchers Chandan Garg and Abhijit Pakhare as “really necessary” to “make people aware that you can die while taking a selfie”. Jain published his own study last year about selfie-related mortality in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. “Sometimes eyes don’t see if your mind doesn’t know.”

Jain’s research found that 75 people died trying to take selfies from 2014 to mid-2016.

“It’s like a man-made disaster,” he said. “It’s not a natural disaster.”

One possible way to prevent selfie deaths would be “no selfie zones”, Bansal said, banning them in certain areas such as “water bodies, mountain peaks and at the top of tall buildings”.

Efforts to stop people taking dangerous selfies have already been tried in several countries, including India, Russia and Indonesia.

Hongkongers taking a selfie during signal 10 Typhoon Mangkhut in September, 2018. Photo: SCMP/Felix Wong

Three years ago, Russia launched a “Safe Selfie” campaign, which featured the slogan, “Even a million ‘likes’ on social media are not worth your life and well-being,” the BBC reported. A graphic with icons of “bad selfie ideas” and stick figures posing on power poles and holding guns was also distributed, Jain noted in his study.

In 2016, Mumbai declared 16 “no selfie zones” across the city following a series of selfie-related deaths, The Guardian reported. Earlier this year, a national park in Indonesia proposed creating a safe spot for photos after a hiker died taking a selfie, according to The Jakarta Post.

“It’s easy to just neglect all this sort of risky behaviour because sometimes we think it’s not possible, like ‘I’m just going to take this picture for five seconds and it’s OK to take this risk,’” Jain said. “But when people actually read in the newspaper that almost more than 150 or 200 people are dying in the last couple of years, then they’ll realise, ‘OK, I should not take this much of risk just to take one picture.’”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Selfies end up as fatal attraction for scores
Post