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Here's how phone shots and selfies kill
Death by selfie. By now, we have multiple examples of the phenomenon - people are falling off cliffs, being electrocuted while climbing on trains to take a selfie, or drowning while jumping in the water during high tide for a few quick snaps.
The "death by selfie" incidents are starting to reach epidemic proportions, with psychologists scrambling to explain how today we are living in the virtual as much as in the physical world, and oftentimes find it hard to distinguish between the two. Heck, even little dolphins washed on the beach are suffering from our obsession with taking pictures of ourselves wherever we go.
"Pictures, or it didn't happen," That's the mantra nowadays, as we live and die by the Instagrams of this world, aided by the proliferation of phones with excellent cameras that we always carry with us. Nowhere is that trend more pronounced than in doing dangerous stunts just to take that selfie or footage to post on your social media or video account for the proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
The tide seems to have started from those Russian "extreme photography" kids climbing to the top of cell and TV towers, bridges and other high structures to do some stunts and make a footage out of it. While these may have been peculiarities of the Russian macho psyche to constantly prove your bravery (or idiocy, if you ask the parents), the trend still quickly caught on, especially in Asia, leading to more and more dangerous undertakings.
We are now up to the point where death-by-selfie incidents have killed hundreds of people since the time the OG iPhone was introduced and especially since 2011 when phone cameras became decent. Regular shots are no better, and if you want to know how things happen, look no further than Kevin Fox's amateur video below.
The guy was recording the scene at the Grand Canyon, trying to show his kids things they shouldn't do, like walking to the edge to take a photo with the majestic natural phenomenon. What he actually recorded is the 20-year-old Emily Koford taking a quick selfie on the narrow rock with her mom Erin, then moving backwards to fit her fully in the frame for a proper shot.
Needless to say, when you try to take a shot, you are immersed in the tiny screen instead of your surroundings, and while Erin tells her daughter twice not to step back, she places her right foot on a "notch" in the rock while expecting there to be a firm ground.
Thаnkfully, there was some just a foot below, so she could keep her balance, but the result could have been tragic, and she could've ended up like the person who drops in the Canyon while taking a selfie - something that has become an annual phenomenon, as per the park's management. It's just that there's usually no recording of those incidents just yet.
