On the list of things more likely to happen than dying from a shark attack...

...is dying from taking a selfie.



Taking selfies more deadly than shark attacks | abc7chicago.com

What do you think about this?

From other articles it seems that most of the fatalities are from not paying attention and falling somewhere and fatally injuring oneself.

Are you someone who often takes selfies?
If so, what is your motivation?
Can you think of any times you've taken them where it might've been dangerous?


I can't say I've never taken a selfie, but it has been very rare. Most of the time it is at my wife's insistence and I've done it to humor her. I do see a small bit of the attraction for some people, but I think it is often taken way overboard. I can't count the times/places I've been in the past year or so and seen people that seemed so consumed with selfie-taking that they appeared to be missing some pretty cool real life experiences. Obviously it is their prerogative if they'd rather have a snapshot for Instagram, Facebook, or whatever, at the risk of missing some of the experience around them. But with all things, I think the best route is a balance. I personally fall towards the side of having a cool memory, or soaking things in, or preferring a picture of the actual item/event/experience without me in it.

Thoughts?

 

Hiked a waterfall trail this summer and saw many people doing very stupid things to take a selfie, so I'm not at all surprised.

 

There's a potential for some great Darwin Awards out there among the selfienados.

 

Another reason they have Darwin Awards...

hmm...I didn't read her post beforehand...oh well, great minds think alike.

 

A statistic with marked regional variations. I would bet just about any amount of money that in @Borla's area of Illinois you are more likely to be killed by an invading alien (from space, not from... well, you know) than by a shark attack.

I hate being the focus of the camera. I always have a stupid look on my face at the moment the shutter clicks. If not that, a dorky smile. I don't find that selfies turn out any better.

Like @Chris Noyb, I don't really like to share my visage on line. I posted one cleavage shot of myself (but not a selfie) on here a couple of years ago and regretted it about the time that I could no longer edit the post.
Except for IDs like driver's license and passport I try to avoid having my picture taken.
Like Borla says, I'd rather concentrate on the experience rather that doing a selfie just to prove that I was there.
When my boyfriend was out of the country last year I took a few sexy selfies for him, just to remind him what he was missing, but I felt self conscious and uncomfortable about it. That probably wouldn't be true if I'd started when I was fifteen, but the technology didn't exist then.

 

I was reading somewhere that the Darwin Awards are actually a misnomer based on the official rules. It is more like the "Lamarckian Awards" because of the differences in the respective theories of Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. The relevant differences are natural selection/fitness vs. inherited acquired traits (even behavioural).

As for the selfie deaths, they're apparently categorized mainly under fatal falling accidents, which are actually quite common. They're substantially more common than firearm deaths, and three times more common than pedestrian accidents. Though maybe many of the selfie deaths are also pedestrian accidents.

 

Might be we need to regulate the purchase and possession of cell phones with cameras. Maybe a five-day waiting period and some regulation of 'concealed carry' with smart phones.