Selfies Can Be Lethal. Use a Photographer.

A comprehensive search of news sources by the U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health has determined that there were at least 259 people killed between 2011 and 2017 in accidents that were directly related to taking selfies.

Almost three out of four victims were male, and the majority were involved in risky behavior at the time of their deaths. The highest number of incidents happened in India, followed by Russia, the United States, and Pakistan. 

India, May 2016: A 15-year-old boy from Pathankot died after he accidentally shot himself with his father's revolver while taking a selfie with the gun pointed at his head.

The study notes that "selfie" was named Word of the Year by the Oxford Dictionary in 2013, and estimated the number of selfies taken by people between the ages of 18 and 24 to be about one million per day. That has only increased.

The study excluded people who died while talking or texting on cellphones; only deaths directly involved in taking selfies were included, and only incidents cross-referenced in "prepared" news sources were included.

Russia, January 2015: Two young men died in the Ural Mountains after they pulled the pin from a live hand grenade to take a selfie. The phone with the picture remained as evidence of the circumstance of their deaths.

The study says, "It is believed that selfie deaths are underreported...for example, certain road accidents while posing for selfies are reported as death due to Road Traffic Accident. Thus, the true magnitude of problem is underestimated. It is therefore important to assess the true burden, causes, and reasons for selfie deaths so that appropriate interventions can be made."

Serbia, April 2015: A 22-year-old man was trying to recreate a scene from his favorite movie Barking at the Stars by running in front of a train, beating it and being hailed a hero. As he ran in front of the train, he tried to take a selfie to document the scene. He was killed instantly when the express train hit him at full speed in the village of Laćarak near the northern Serbian town of Sremska Mitrovica.

The leading causes of death while taking selfies are drowning, accidents involving forms of transport, and falls. Electrocutions are also a major cause.

Italy, June 2014: A 16-year-old girl died in Taranto after plunging 60 feet onto rocks while she was trying to take a photograph of herself on the seafront.

"Attempting to take a selfie" is never reported as the cause of death.

The study's conclusion is that "No Selfie Zones" should be declared in places known to be dangerous to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths.

Personally, it seems to me that public awareness would be a better strategy, because "No Selfie Zone" signs would be easy to ignore, and there are too many places where people can get into trouble engaging in risky, distracted activity. Also, some of the danger is related to reckless behavior rather than hazardous surroundings. We photographers know how difficult it is to concentrate on making a picture while paying close attention to our subjects, and we can help convey that to inexperienced snapshooters.

The bottom line is that it's actually not easy to take a selfie and do something dangerous at the same time. You have to concentrate on what you're doing. Which makes it easier to be less aware of what's happening around you and other sources of peril.

Best solution? The traditional one: in iffy situations, use a photographer. That is, get someone else to take the picture. People shouldn't do it themselves. They should concentrate on where they are and what they're doing, and let a photographer concentrate on taking the picture.

Mike
(Inset examples from Wikipedia. No "last
selfies" were used to illustrate this post in
consideration of the privacy of families.)

[UPDATE Saturday: I won't allow any more scornful, derisive, dismissive, or "Darwin Award" type comments. Keep in mind that compassion is an essential element of our spiritual fitness. Imagine if it happened to your child, your brother, your childhood best friend. —Ed.]

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Arg: "I disagree with the sentiment of some, that it is not the selfie but the 'dangerous thing' that is lethal. I disagree because many people don't want to do the 'dangerous thing' unless there is a selfie taken to record it happening. Plus, of course, doing the 'dangerous thing' one-handed, while putting all your attention into the other hand, is not just twice as dangerous, but more like 200X more dangerous. I therefore conclude that it is indeed the selfies that are lethal."

Mike replies: I agree. I think the salient insight we photographers have to offer is what you point out in your third sentence. I know that when I am intent on the viewfinder, at least two-thirds of my attention is concentrated on that.

My first smartphone had a driving app that just gave visuals, no audible directions. I tried to drive while checking the route on the screen...once. I never did it again. The screen drew so much of my attention that I immediately began driving just like I was drunk. Concentrating on taking a phone picture of a dynamic, changing subject while also concentrating on your safety in a perilous situation is about like making yourself instantly drunk, in terms of impairing your ability to concentrate on the danger.

D. Hufford: "Well, I think it has all been pretty much said here. The first rule is don't do stupid, dangerous things no matter who is taking the photo. But I especially want to comment on the pointing a of an unloaded firearm at ones head. Don't. Never. Ever. No matter if you checked the gun to see if it is loaded or not. No matter how familiar you are with the firearm. One of the basic rules of firearms safety is to never point one at anything you do not intend to shoot. That means 'unloaded' or not.

"To simplify that, never point a firearm at something that you are not willing to destroy if it goes off.

"Back in my military days, we had lots of city boys and others not familiar with firearms or firearms safety who thought it was funny to point unloaded firearms at their own heads or at someone else during training. Fortunately, the instructors, upon seeing this, would take the young innocents aside and, without so much as a trigger warning, kindly explain to them why they should never ever do that and if they did do so ever again in their #$@*&% miserable little lives they would wish it had been loaded when they pointed it at themselves. And those instructors were kind compared to my old man.

"Don't play with firearms, loaded or 'unloaded.' Lots of people have been killed with unloaded firearms. Never point one at anything that you are not willing to destroy."

Mike replies: At the suggestion of Craig, who commented yesterday, I read a few paragraphs about the death of guitarist Terry Kath of the '70s group "Chicago." More people might want to read it; it's vivid.

marcin wuu: "Actually, if I saw a sign proclaiming a 'No Selfie Zone,' I'd be more than certain to take a selfie instantly, even though I'm normally not prone to those. And I'd do my best to keep the sign in frame. And I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one."

Mike replies: Made me laugh. Makes me want to post a "No Selfies Allowed" sign outside my window...with the writing helpfully at head height. I'll bet people would stop all Summer long.

I've mentioned before that there's a freeway road sign in Wisconsin that says "Bong Recreation Area." At the bottom of the next exit there's a gas station, and the woman working there told me she gets people coming in all day long asking things like "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" Half of them want to know how to get back to the sign so they can take their pictures standing under it. (The recreation area is named for Richard Ira Bong, the top U.S. fighter ace in WWII.)

When I see signs in museums that say "No Photography," I usually have to take pictures of them....

Comments

[David Zivic]

I read this piece and this post today. Really good advice. I might include an obvious contribution to the unfortunately conclusions. It is a comment often right before these sort of events. "Here, hold my beer and watch this"

[Gordon Lewis]

Maybe it's just my sick sense of humor, but this post made me laugh more than cry. In my opinion, the real lesson here is not to indulge in obvious life-threatening activities. Any one of these idiots was likely to die from what they were doing, regardless of whether someone else was photographing them or not.

[Eolake]

Seems to me most of these simply come under “Darwin Awards”.

[Benjamin Marks]

I find it morbidly interesting, and ineffably sad, that these deaths occurred because of the intersection of photography and what we are currently calling "social media." I had not really thought of photography as a potentially life-threatening pursuit except in extreme, intentional circumstances (e.g. combat photographers, mountain climbing photography (Galen Rowell comes to mind)) and so on. I am sure that designers of the iPhone and its ilk did not foresee this as a consequence of the current technological state of things.

[Craig]

I'm pretty sure you're not entirely serious about blaming selfies in these cases; there is, I think you'll agree, a difference between "selfies are lethal" and "doing incredibly stupid, dangerous things is lethal." The fact that the stupid, dangerous thing was done for the purpose of photographing it is secondary, though certainly a contributing factor. "Use a photographer" is the wrong solution; "Don't do stupid, dangerous things" is a better one. Pointing a gun at your own head is a bad idea under just about any circumstances, but if you're going to do it, first make sure the gun is not loaded. Which means you'd better know enough about that particular type of gun to be able to tell. People have died because they thought a semi-automatic pistol was unloaded when they'd removed the magazine, not realizing there was still a round in the chamber. Guitarist Terry Kath of Chicago accidentally shot himself in 1978 because of that mistake.

Personally, I think most selfies are horrible photographs, and it might be arguable that for that reason alone they ought to be lethal... but I've seen some very good, striking ones as well. Usually the good ones are taken with the aid of a mirror to avoid that annoying "huge arm stretched out to the side of the frame" effect.

[PWL]

Don’t want to see people killed, but still, many of these are serious cases of Darwin Award....

[Peter Nigos]

The extensive publicity granted to this study fails to point out that this is just another example of Darwinian evolution. The Darwin Awards are given to individuals who contribute to human advancement by removing themselves from the gene pool before they can reproduce. Not all photographers are as smart as the readers of this blog.

[Steve Higgins]

"The study's conclusion is that "No Selfie Zones" should be declared in places known to be dangerous to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths."

Or increase, as idiots try to take selfies while standing next to the sign...

[Henk]

You just can't make the world idiot-proof...

[JG]

So it should be "hold my camera" instead of "hold my beer"?

[PacNW]

Agreed. However the excellent documentary "Bridegroom" is about someone who did use a photographer, and that photographer tragically died in a fall while taking photos. Trailer:

https://youtu.be/gFEo4GcHh3U

Everyone please be very careful.

[David Goldenberg]

There's a poll for that:
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/

David

[John Krumm]

Well, anything that happens millions of times a day will correlate with deaths. How many people died while farting yesterday?

[Roger Bradbury]

I thought death by electrocution would be due to people getting into high voltage substations, but it seems that many were killed by the high voltage wires or rails that feed electric trains.

We've covered the deaths from being hit by a train while taking pictures but people just can't keep away, it seems.

The definition (I think it's in our electrical regulations) of high voltage is 1,000 volts or more. I'm an electrician and it scares me.

I've worked on ancient, live three phase control cabinets where hardly anything is sheathed; the 415 volts you get with a three phase supply will easily stop your heart and it's far more effective at it than our (UK) domestic 240 volts. There are ways to minimise the risk but it's not a good idea to discuss them here.

As the voltage increases it gets nastier; at 11,000 volts even if the supply to a cable is disconnected it will still hold a lethal electrical charge. I've watched carefully as a disconnected 11,000 volt cable was deliberately discharged to earth before I was allowed to go near it. This might happen at lower voltages too.

[Roger Lambert]

There are 93 million selfies taken every day, 3.4 billion a year. 259 deaths in 5 years is roughly 50 people per year.

The odds of being killed by taking a selfie are therefore about 1 in 68 million. Some other odds of dying:

* lightning (1 in 700,000)
* bee sting (1 in 6 million)
* terrorist attack (1 in 20 million)
* shark attack (1 in 11.5 million)
* skydiving ( 1 in 100,000)
* murder (1 in 18,690)
* by your own furniture (1 in 20 million)
* lack of clean water (1 in 2,050) This kills more people than war :(

Statistically speaking, taking a selfie may be one of the safer endeavors you might enjoy.
Risks are relative.

[Personally I had the opposite takeaway: that if 259 people died, it means that thousands were injured and tens or hundreds of thousands are experiencing close calls or are getting away with risks. How many people drive drunk vs. the number that are killed while driving drunk?

I think it's quite likely people don't realize the danger they put themselves in. (For instance, my risk of dying while skydiving is zero, because I will never skydive. My only risk from the activity is being hit by a skydiver whose parachute failed to open while I'm standing on the ground.) Personally, what I want is for people to stop driving drunk...and we've made great progress on that front. And, personally, what I would want is for people to stop putting their lives in danger while practicing the hobby that I've loved all my life. Or, if they do put themselves in danger, to at least realize what they're doing when they do it. --Mike]

[David Lee]

I would love to hear what Bill Burr has to say about this.

[Keith]

So if a would be selfie-taker hands their phone to a stranger and asks them to snap a photo, said selfie taker then needs written consent from the stranger (photographer) to allow use of that photo. I wonder how many tourists never consider that they don't actually own the rights to photos they ask others to take on their own camera.

[No they don't. Classic case of Orphaned Work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_work

IANAL. --Mike]

[Richard Parkin]

But ... didn’t you just post a selfie in your previous post? OK, it’s only part of your arm but a selfie doesn’t have to the whole body :-)

[I swear no risks were taken in the making of that pic. --Mike]

[Bob Gary]

While asking someone else to take a possible dangerous ‘selfie’, (and be a co-conspirator) maybe a some kind of other message on a sign that would discourage the dangerous act to begin with? Something like:
“This could be your last selfie - Think safe, be safe”, or maybe, “Would your love ones have only your last Facebook post to remember you by?”... something similar, and of course not facilitating the already suicidal... this could be something like a very simple message that comes up on the screen of the phones when used in the selfie mode... “Beware of Selfie Danger”... this could give the phone makers a legal disclaimer...

[John Ironside]

A big problem with statistics for unwanted events is that they're often given without the all important denominator. They don't say so many deaths per participant year, per hour of activity, per lifetime, per distance travelled, per unit of useful output, or per event (eg per skydive).

And readers will make comparisons between these stats that have very different denominators, and thus get a very false idea of the comparative riskiness of activities.

[Simon Griffee]

Reminded me of this photographer error:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqSdgLh_1w

A professional I know told me of two or three cases of photographers working on rooftops falling through skylights and passing on.

I must admit I share Gordon’s reaction to all of these. As John Cleese once said, ”Solemnity, on the other hand… I don't know what it's for.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g

[Y.B. Hudson III]

I ‘ear you! Ah for the days of Van Gogh.

[subroto mukerji]

Delhi Woman taking selfie falls to death in Maharashtra
TIMES OF INDIA Jun 21, 2018, 13:22 IST

NAVI MUMBAI: A 35-year-old homemaker from south Delhi died after falling into a 900-ft deep valley while taking a selfie with her husband at Matheran. The incident took place on Tuesday evening, hours after the family of five reached the popular hill station in Raigad district after visiting a relative in Pune.

[Jim Arthur]

I’ve never really thought about selfies much. I just assumed it was something teenagers did as they competed for “likes” on a global level. My first personal smart phone is less than a year old and I have taken exactly one selfie. I wanted to show a sibling my sad state after mohs surgery. I stuck my tongue out for the shot.

When I search on the term “psychological reasons for taking selfies”, it seems the research is just getting started. One finding seems to be a difference between male and female study subjects which is kind of interesting. It also seems that many of the study subjects are young (compared to me anyway) and I think the poor decision making of youth may account for much of the danger being associated with selfies. I know I sure did some stupid things in cars as a teenager.

FYI – It seems that back in 2014 there was a report that claimed that the American Psychiatric Association had classed “selfitis” as a new mental disorder but that turned out to be a hoax.

[Kurt Friis Hansen]

Hard to TOP; even if you wanted to!