The most recent data covers the years between 2011 and 2017, a period in which 259 people worldwide lost their lives while trying to take a selfie.
To give a comparative example: in 2015 eight people died worldwide as a result of a shark attack; at least twelve died after risking their skin to take a selfie with which to impress the staff.
Every day, human beings take about a million self-portraits. According to the statistics website Priceonomics, on Instagram there are about 50 million photos with the selfie tag, and the term is mentioned every week in 365,000 Facebook posts and 150,000 tweets.
This wave of digital self-centeredness has a tragic side. In search of the most risky and impressive image, there are people who pose hanging from cliffs, lying on the train tracks, suspended from a building, too close to dangerous animals … And sometimes things end badly.
How many kill themselves taking a selfie, where and in what way, and what profile do those clapping in this stupid way have?
Priceonomics has carried out a study that provides information on these questions, although it is assumed that there are cases that escape statistics. On the other hand, the average age of the victims is 21 years, and 75% are men.
Twinks showing off fatal pride
Does the excess of testosterone of the manly girl explain why it is mainly boys who pass away while trying to immortalize themselves? Perhaps. What Ohio State University psychologists have found is that men who post the most selfies on social media tend to exhibit more personality traits related to narcissism and psychopathy than the rest. When these guys are self-portraying, they place more value on self-assertion than on potential risks.
But let’s get back to the stark numbers. Always according to Priceonomics work, a third of those who die while taking a selfie die from a fall from the heights, usually from a cliff or a building. Nearby are deaths by drowning, and in third place are those caused by train run-ins.
A global escabechina
The fashion of self-portraying and uploading the result to the internet has reached all corners of the planet, but where is it most dangerous?
Since 2014, 40% of selfie deaths have occurred in India. It is a fact that cannot be attributed only to the high population of that country, because China has reported only one case in the same period. India has one of the highest accident death rates in the world, and that fact, coupled with the selfie mania, explains the phenomenon.
The next states in the ranking are Russia (7 dead), USA (5), the Philippines (4) and Spain (4).
Will people continue to die for this cause? Probably to the joy of the sponsors of the Darwin Awards.
