Selfie deaths: What to avoid

20 พฤศจิกายน 2559

Selfies in front of oncoming trains & on the edge of cliffs top list of risky poses to avoid while taking selfies.

SOCIAL MEDIA & SAFETY

Selfie deaths: What to avoid

18/11/2016
AFP News agency

NEW DELHI - Next time you're at the Taj Mahal, find yourself standing on a precarious cliff or see an approaching train, maybe just enjoy the moment rather than trying to capture the perfect selfie.

These are just three of the ways that 76 selfie-takers in India have lost their lives,.

This is according to the study titled "Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths" (read research paper for free here & pdf here).

The study was published by US based Carnegie Mellon University and Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi.

INDIA LEADS WORLD IN SELFIE DEATHS

In the quest for the coolest selfie, more people have died in India in the past two years than the total number of selfie - related deaths in the rest of the world, the study finds.

Using special search techniques to trawl the internet and social media, the researchers identified 127 confirmed selfie deaths since March 2014.

MORE SELFIE DEATHS THAN SHARK ATTACK DEATHS

"(The) clicking of dangerous selfies (has proved) to be so disastrous that during the year 2015 alone, there have been more deaths caused due to selfies than shark attacks all over the world," the researchers said in a blog post.

RISK-TAKING TIED TO DESIRE FOR MORE LIKES

The researchers blamed people's desire for more "likes" and comments on social media for driving increasingly risky selfie-taking.

Here are four of the more horrific cases of death by selfie:

1. Three students in northern India died trying to take a daring selfie in front of an oncoming train.

2. Another student lost his life when the cliff he was standing on for a photo cracked, sending him plunging 18 metres into a ravine.

3. A selfie-taking Japanese tourist died after he slipped down the stairs at the Taj Mahal, and finally...

4. Seven people posing for a group selfie died when the boat they were in capsized.

AT 76 DEATHS INDIA FAR AHEAD OF EVERY OTHER COUNTRY, WHY?

Pakistan took second place in the global killer-selfie rankings with nine deaths, followed by the United States with eight and Russia with six.

India's population of 1.25 billion is nearly four times the size of the US's and over six times the size of Pakistan, but that fails to account for the huge discrepancy between the number of fatalities.

According to the study, China with its population of 1.37 billion only had four selfie-related deaths.

The group behind the study hopes their work will raise awareness of the killer trend -- and maybe encourage people to be more safe and just appreciate the view.

Here are some things that you don't want to try:

GHOST GIRL CAUGHT BY DASHCAM SITTING ON BACK OF SPEEDING CAR

The advent of cheap image capturing capability including cameras on mobile phones, dashcams on cars and CCTV cameras on every street corner has made the documenting of risky behaviours much easier and common.

Recently, the image of a young woman sitting on the back of a car speeding along Rama IX road in Bangkok scared the living daylights out of netizens who at first thought she was a ghost.

Later, speculations that the woman was actually the taxi driver's wife who had caught him cheating snowballed into a rumour or urban legend on the web that every could believe, or at least wanted to believe.

Finally, the young woman was successfully located and fined 500 baht for sitting incorrectly on the car hood which made her even more famous.

http://www.posttoday.com/social/general/466016
http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2016/11/18/ghostly-girl-fined-sitting-top-moving-taxi
http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2016/11/15/police-hunt-ghostly-girl-who-sat-top-moving-taxi-video

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/1138737/india-tops-ranking-for-selfie-deaths