India Records Highest Selfie Deaths In The World – Report
Agency report
Seventy-six selfie-takers in India have lost their lives, according to a study published by US-based Carnegie Mellon University and Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi.
In the quest for the coolest selfie, more people have died in India in the past two years. That is more than the total number of selfie-related deaths in the rest of the world. The report is titled “Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths”.
With the use of special search techniques to trawl the internet and social media, the researchers identified 127 confirmed selfie deaths since March 2014.
People’s drive for ‘likes’ result in death
They blamed people’s desire for more “likes” and comments on social media for driving increasingly risky selfie-taking.
“[The] clicking 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.
Three students in northern India died trying to take a daring selfie in front of an oncoming train.
Another student lost his life when the cliff he was standing on for a photo cracked. He plunged 18 metres (60 feet) into a ravine.
Man slips taking selfie
A selfie-taking Japanese tourist died after he slipped down the stairs at the Taj Mahal. Seven other people posing for a group selfie died when the boat they were in capsized.
Pakistan took second place in the global killer-selfie rankings with nine deaths. The United States followed with eight and Russia on 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 just appreciate the view.
