Study Finds India Has The Most Selfie-Related Deaths
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Millions of selfies are taken every day and posted to social media accounts that cause little to no harm but a disturbing trend of "dangerous selfies" is causing people to compromise their safety in order to achieve "the perfect shot."
Researchers from Carnegie Melon and two technology institutes in India found 127 selfie-related deaths have been reported over the last two years -- 76 of which have occurred in India alone. Pakistan and the U.S. follow behind with 9 and 8 selfie-related deaths.
The study, titled "Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths" details eight different reasons for the casualties.
- Vehicle related
- Water related
- Height related
- Height and Water-related
- Road related
- Animal related
- Train related
- Weapons related
Height related selfies were noted as the most common reason of selfie deaths. Being hit by a train was the second most popular category.
Study authors were also able to determine a selfie's "danger level" by analyzing image, location and text-based features -- meaning whether there is something "dangerous" in the picture such as a weapon or a body of water; the location they are taking the picture; and the texts that accompany the picture that can give the selfie more context. They looked at 138,496 tweets collected between August and September 2016 and found their model had an accuracy of 73.6 percent.
The analysis also showed that although women are known for taking more selfies, men are more prone to taking "dangerous selfies," accounting for 75.5 percent of the casualties.
