Selfies Are Literally Killing People ... Great

Selfies Are Literally Killing People ... Great pexels.com Some of the more ridiculous, tragic deaths include people falling from mountains, falling into rivers, crashing airplanes (in other words, putting more than just their own lives at stake for the “perfect” selfie) and getting hit by trains. In fact, in more recent news, people have also accidentally shot themselves while taking a selfie with a gun. Again, not joking. So of course, such stupidity warrants expert help, which is why a group of computer experts have analyzed these “deaths-by-selfie” and attempted to create a solution. It’s no surprise that the solution is yet another application for users to install on their phones. The app in question would warn individuals that they are in a “death-by-selfie” zone. I can’t stress how much I wish I was making this up. And to make matters worse, this is an international problem. According to Hemank Lamba, from Carnegie Mellon University and Ponnurangam Kumaraguru from the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology and their colleagues, “We found that most common reason of selfie death was height-related. These involved people falling off buildings or mountains while trying to take dangerous selfies.” They wrote these findings in their report, which they published online at arXiv. What were other reasons for selfie-related deaths? The number two cause was a tie between drowning and being hit by a train. For any of you that commute and pass over train tracks at some point, this probably isn’t much of a surprise, as many individuals stop directly on the tracks in bumper to bumper traffic (in a personal experience, the woman behind me did so while talking on her phone. Luckily for her, no train was coming). Not sure if it’s an obliviousness or an “it can’t happen to me” mentality, but this problem is universal, and it’s a problem. According to Kumaraguru, these deaths were becoming a news report trend, and he and his colleagues wanted to do something about it. He attempted to use data mining in order to come up with his solution. According to him, “It is important because people are losing their lives because of taking dangerous selfies.” So what constitutes a “dangerous selfie”? How about a few examples? For one, there’s the German tourist who was killed in Peru. He attempted to catch himself on top of Macchu Picchu back in July and failed. There’s also five women from India who were taking a selfie in India. One of them died in September when she fell into the reservoir below. The other four died shortly after in their attempts to save her. There’s also the man in Washington, here in the U.S., who was taking selfies with his gun. He pulled the trigger, apparently thinking that it wasn’t loaded, and shot himself. And finally, there’s the man in Colorado that died taking a selfie while flying a plane, killing the other passenger in the plane along with him. I think Kumaraguru sums it up correctly in saying, “These are very disturbing.” So how many selfie deaths have there been? According to Kumaraguru and his team after collating media reports around the world, there have been about 127 reported selfie-related deaths between 2014 and September of this year. So he’s been working tirelessly to help fix the problem. According to him, he and the team have been attempting to develop a software that would warn users about their surroundings. Basically, if the user is in a dangerous area, the app would warn them, or it would turn off their camera in risky areas. According to him, “It could help users make better decisions.” The thought is there, the effort is there, but the probability that these “risk-takers” would download such an app is unlikely. Basically, if people are going to take selfies atop mountains, an app isn’t going to stop them from doing so. Or, more simply, they aren’t looking to be censored in their selfie taking, so they won’t ever download the app. However, the team is hopeful and continues to work for this solution. They are researching the areas where selfie deaths have actually occurred as well as areas where there’s potential for selfie-related deaths and they’re creating algorithms for the risk to selfie-takers. According to them, “We believe that the study can inspire and provide footprints for technologies which can stop users from clicking dangerous selfies, and thus preventing more of such casualties.” Whether or not it works, we’ll have to wait and see.