SELFIES CLAIM MORE LIVES THAN SHARK ATTACK THIS YEAR.

Many people love to take a photographic self-portrait, otherwise called selfie. I love selfies too. And people who love snapping selfies, which I will like to hashtag #TeamSelfie, can give you a 1001 reasons while you should always snap one.


Another class of people, #TeamNoSelfie, will tell you how much they hate taking selfies. This class does not dislike  snapping pictures but only get turned off easily whenever they see people child away in the name of talking selfies.

If you belong to #TeamSelfie you need to pay some attention to this.

A recent report shows that there have been at least 12 selfie-related deaths around the world this year as against 6(in some quarters, 8) reported cases of people killed by shark.

According to New York Daily News, a researcher, Lin Qiu, who conducted a study on Selfies for Nanyang Technological University, Singapore — said he was surprised by the alarming rates of people risking their lives to perform dangerous stunts like dangling from skyscrapers, or posing with ammunition in order to get the perfect shot.

Lin further said,"when people are fully engaged in the self expression process of selfies, they may be too focused on themselves and pay little attention to their surroundings, which may be inappropriate or dangerous".

Now, let's take a look at some of the death caused by inappropriate selfie snapping.

1. A 21 year old man was killed when he climbed a stationary train to take a selfie with friends and accidentally touched a high-voltage power cable running overhead.

2 . Another 21 year old named Oscar Otero Aguilar accidentally shot himself with a handgun while trying to take a selfie with the gun.

3. A Polish couple died when they stumbled off a cliff edge while trying to take a selfie, with their two children watching.

4. A Russian teenager who scaled St Petersburg railway bridge fell 30ft to her death after losing her balance. She scaled the bridge in order to take a selfie.

5. A US woman died in a highway accident seconds after uploading a selfie of herself enjoying a hit song on her car stereo.

All this cases will no doubt send some chill feeling down your spine. They all show clearly the extent people are willing to go in order to take a selfie.

The dangers associated with taking selfies lie, not in the pictures taken, but in people who love to break  barriers by snapping selfies even when the situation and timing seem not to be right.

Many people including I share the opinion of Jill Walker Reuters, a professor of digital culture at the University of Bergen, who said,"The problem isn't selfies, it's the rush of excitement-the adrenaline rush of standing by a cliff or too close to a glacier or holding a gun to our heads.