Next time you're perched at a cliff's edge or beside a roaring waterfall, pause before snapping that selfie—it could be your last. A comprehensive study reviewing news reports from October 2011 to November 2017 documented 259 selfie-related deaths across 137 incidents, with more than 250 lives lost globally in just six years. Leading causes include drowning, transportation accidents, and falls. Researchers classified incidents by risky versus non-risky behavior, finding risky actions responsible for far more deaths. Among women, non-risky behavior caused more fatalities than risky; for men, risky behavior accounted for about three times as many.
India reported the highest number of selfie deaths, with significant cases also in Russia, the United States, and Pakistan.
