Taking Selfies has taken 49 lives, since 2014 – 40% were in India [Info-graphic]

Illustration by Priceonomics

If you follow news from photography, in a few weeks or months you will become used to hearing the news of injuries or even deaths caused by a camera when handled irresponsibly. But taking selfies or self-portraits have become the major reason in fatal accidents with camera these days.

Taking a selfie is the mostly used action today to take a photo of one self with the camera or a mobile phone. But this addiction leaves a chain of lives – lost in the process of getting noticed by fellows or may be it’s just another addiction, whatever you call it. As people are getting more daring and attempt to take a thrilling self-portrait to share online with their friends and followers, the stories of those picture-takers are even getting increased which involve serious injuries or deaths.

Most extreme selfie-takers are driven by
the appreciation – or most probably the “validation”,
of their friends and followers on social media

Zachary Crockett at Priceonomics recently examined the stories of selfie-fatalities from around the world and put down the facts and figures into a series of charts that can tell where and how taking selfies can be fatal. He is promising to tell that most extreme selfie-takers are driven by the appreciation – or most probably the “validation”, of their friends and followers on social media.

A look through the Instagram page of Andrey Retrovsky — the 17-year-old who died taking a selfie on a 9-story building in Russia — yields words of encouragement from users: “Keep getting crazier, bro!”; “Next, try a skyscraper”; “If you [climb] higher, it will be sexier ;)”

According to what he searched and found, 49 people have died while taking selfies since 2014. Of the dead, 75% were male, while the average age was 21 years.

Also note that as usually we know and think that women take more selfies than men, the current finding by Crockett show that 36 of the 49 selfie-deaths were of male. Well this also reflects (or proves?) the studies that men are more likely to take risks than women, no matter if they are taking selfies or jumping across the trees.

Following chart shows that the most fatalities were occurred by “falling from the building”, then by “drowning” and “train hits”

Another chart illustrates that India is the country where most selfie related deaths occurred since 2014. Looking at China’s biggest population, the reason can not be attributed to India’s population as China only contributed 1 selfie-death.

Pakistan has also been counted with 1 death caused while taking selfie. It was late last year when Jamshaid Khan, 22, an employee of the railways department, attempted to take selfie while standing on the railway tracks in Rawalpindi — The Guardian.

It’s not selfie who takes the life when you try to take it.

The question is still there “Are selfies themselves risky, or people use it as a risky weapon?”

Of course, no one would tell you that it’s selfie who takes life while you try to take it. It’s just a factor people use it in awkward set of ways with thrilling actions to impress or get attention of their peers – most importantly over social medias.

To take Safe Selfies you should also take the following preventive measures

In a well mannered way, Russian Govt. has published instructions to take “Safe Selfies” on their website.

If you are interested, take a look at following video clip showing extreme actions – done, only to take selfies and nothing else.