These days thanks to increasingly more powerful front-facing cameras on our smartphones, long gone are the days where you had to ask a passerby to help you take a photo of yourself. Unfortunately the attempt to take the “perfect” selfie has led to multiple accidents and in some cases, even death.
Now some of you might be thinking that death by selfie is quite rare, but according to a recent global study (via BBC), it has been found that 259 people have died between 2011 and 2017 in a quest to take selfies. The study found that drowning, transport accidents, and falling were the most common causes of death, although there have been other instances such as animals, electrocution, fire, and even firearms.
In fact the US National Library of Medicine has gone as far as to recommend that “no selfie” zones should be created at dangerous spots to try and help reduce accidents or death. This isn’t the first time such an idea has been proposed, and back in 2016 the city of Mumbai in India actually created 16 no selfie zones to try and prevent such accidents.
Even the Russian police had at one point in time warned the public against taking unnecessary risks when trying to capture a selfie. Will these warnings help? We suppose it’s hard to say, but the next time you try to take a selfie, maybe try to pay attention to your surroundings first to determine if it is safe.
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