In a shocking report by India’s Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, it is being revealed that the act of photographing themselves without safety concerns, have remarkably killed five times more people than shark attacks.
Due to selfies, which have become a global sensation in the last decade, the death toll has crept up incrementally each year as smartphones become more sophisticated. Moreover, the selfie-sticks increase the range at which people can snap themselves, prompting them to take bigger risks for the perfect shot.
According to India’s Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, at least 259 people died taking selfies around the globe between October 2011 and November 2017.
While women take the most selfies, young men, who are more prone to take risks, make up three quarters of the selfie deaths – in drownings, crashes, falls or shooting accidents.
As quoted by few media reports, India, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, holds the record for the number of people dying in the act of photographing themselves, with 159 recorded so far. It has seen groups of young people die when they were hit by a train or drowning when their boat sank at the moment they were clicking the shutter. The situation has become so dire that India has set up “no selfie” zones – 16 of them in the city of Mumbai alone.
From Brazil to Vietnam and Germany, witnesses to traffic accidents have posted selfies at the scene of the crash — generally seen as gauche.More and more, selfies — even in tourist havens — are becoming a bit of a nuisance for locals.
