The Danger of Selfies

Selfies are amongst the hottest trend of people  all over the world. Selfies are self-taken photographs that are typically shot from a high-angle, exaggerating the size of the eyes and giving the impression of a slender pointed chin. Selfies are often shared on social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As it continues to spread throughout the world, in a press of time, more than 31 million Instagram photos have been hashtagged #selfie. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, 91% percent of teens have posted a photo of themselves. Even celebrities are now selfie-posers themselves.

However, while selfies may seem harmless, they can actually be dangerous to a person mentally.  For decades, research psychologists have put mirrors and cameras in laboratories to understand what happens psychologically when we look at ourselves. The first experience is self-consciousness -- we become aware of ourselves as objects. The second is comparison -- we compare ourselves to our ideal standards and think: Am I all that I should be? And the answer of many of us is no -- with the result being anxiety. Other than anxiety, studies also reported that selfies promote narcissism or self-absorption in some people and apparently, driving people to seek plastic surgery in order to achieve perfection.

According to Time, psychiatrists are now beginning to consider a compulsion to take selfies as a serious "mental problem".  A psychiatrist named, Dr. David Veal said that: "Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take selfies." Veal points to an extreme case, patient Danny Bowman, who allegedly spent up to 10 hours a day taking hundreds of selfies in a futile attempt to capture the perfect photo. He stopped attending school, lost "two stones" (around 28 pounds), stayed in his house for six months and fought with his parents. Eventually he tried to commit suicide. Bowman was treated for OCD, technology addiction and Body Dysmorphic Disorder — a chronic mental health condition in which the sufferer obsesses over perceived flaws with their body.

Other than psychological dangers, selfies are also reported to be the cause of death and injuries of people taking self-photographs of themselves. On April 2014, a seventeen-year-old, Russian amateur photographer climbed atop a railway bridge in Saint Petersburg and ended up losing her balance, falling to her death after taking a selfie. On July 2014, a fourteen-year-old girl high school student in the Philippines fell to her death after losing her balance while taking a selfie of herself and a friend near the staircase landing of their school in suburban Pasig City. According to doctors, the girl sustained a sharp blow to the head from the fall and a rib had broken, piercing her kidney. On August 2014, a fifteen-year-old boy, also in the Philippines, was critically wounded after accidentally shooting himself while taking a selfie in which his other hand was holding a gun to his chin.

On May 2015, a Romanian eighteen-year-old died when she attempted to take the “ultimate selfie”, posing with a friend on top of a train in the north-eastern Romanian city of Iași when her leg touched a live wire above, sending an electrical surge of up to 27,000 volts through her body. Also, a Russian 21-year-old woman asked a security guard at her office to give her a 9-millimeter rubber-bullet pistol for taking a selfie and accidentally shot herself in the head sustaining heavy injuries. In July 2015, another 21-year-old Russian university graduate died after falling from a bridge while she was trying to take a memorable selfie next to Moscow City financial district.

Therefore selfies actually have bad effects to people, even just by taking photos of themselves. Not only selfies dangerous to one's mental health. Selfies can also be the cause of physical injury and death of people. Many studies have shown how it can affect people's everyday lives with just one-click of a camera, or just by holding a selfie stick. Thus, one should be aware that while taking selfies, they must also be aware of what is happening around them with extreme precaution. It is not always good to be following the trends and it's not everyday people die when taking a selfie.