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| "Dying for the 'Gram" |
According
to a report from Vice:
A new
study has found more than 250 people have died in pursuit of a perfect selfie.
The
study published by the Journal of Family
Medicine and Primary Care journal (and republished by the National Library
of Medicine in the US) looks into how many of us social media obsessed plebs
are dying
for the ‘gram. Led by Dr. Agam Bansal at the India Institute of
Medical Sciences, the study analyzed news articles from October 2011 to
November 2017 and found there have been 259 reported deaths—dubbed selficides
in one part of the article—resulting from that never-ending thirst for
Instagram likes.
In regards to those 259, the researchers broke down the geography
of the deaths and found that the “highest number of incidents and
selfie-deaths” were in “India followed by Russia, the United States, and
Pakistan.” The average age of those getting killed was unsurprisingly pretty
young at 22.94 years. According to the data, the chance of you reaching death
by selfie drops off significantly (again, unsurprisingly) by the time someone
hits 30. Just over three-quarters of those killed taking selfies were men (also,
unsurprisingly).
Some of these deaths have been relatively high profile…In May of
this year, a man in India was mauled to death by a bear while trying to get a selfie. There have been
several stories of people falling just after
they’ve taken the selfie
leaving only the ghostly photo of them seconds before their demise. The study
makes it clear that this isn’t a small problem and there are almost certainly
more people out there who died taking selfies than the 259 they reported.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” reads part of the study.
“Many cases are not reported.”
. . .
The top three causes of deaths were drowning, being hit by a
vehicle, or falling. In terms of the vehicle-related deaths the biggest killer
has been people trying to get that perfect shot in front of a moving train.
Unsurprisingly the United States leads when it comes to firearm-related selfie
deaths.
Watch: Images of Tragic Selficides [These Are Graphic and May be Disturbing]
Watch: 10 Tragic Deaths by Selfie
Selfies Have Claimed More than 250 Deaths Around the Globe
We all need to be smarter, and these statistics, while gruesome, help remind us all...