After 19 related deaths in India, Mumbai bans selfies in key areas
An interesting craze is catching like
wildfire among the India’s youth. It’s not quite as puzzling as the “planking”
fad that swept through the western world in 2011, but it is proving to be just
as unexpectedly dangerous. Since 2014, at least 49 deaths have been linked to
selfies, but a disproportionate 19 of these deaths have occurred in India,
where a trend the press is calling “Selfie Fever” is running rampant. In
response to this phenomenon, Mumbai has ordered that it will be illegal to take
selfies in 16 particularly at-risk zones throughout the city.
The Guardian is citing the source of India’s
selfie problem as “a thirst for social media self-aggrandisement” that’s fueled
by such things as newspaper coverage of celebrity selfies and a competitive
drive to take more and more creative and unexpected selfies in strange places
and at bizarre angles. Also contributing to this figure is India’s large and
growing population (1.25 billion) and a booming smartphone market.
Mumbai-based psychologist Keerti Sachdeva
said this problem has roots in teenagers’ need to find acceptance and
recognition from their peers. “You know people have this sort of feeling in
adolescent age, especially that they need to get this acceptance from everyone,
that I am a smart person, I am a good-looking person,” Sachdeva said. “So for
acceptance and recognition they are indulging in the taking of selfies.”
Technology has provided a method to achieve the sensation of this recognition
in a way that simply did not exist before the widespread adoption of
smartphones and social media.
As part of a public safety measure, Mumbai’s
municipal council has mapped out dangerous selfie regions and declared these
no-selfie zones. Mostly, these include high areas lacking railings or barriers
as well as coastal selfie hotspots. Politician Abhishek Ghosalkar, who took
part in the call for this ban, cited evidence of some psychologists calling an
obsession with selfies a kind of disorder.
This may well be the case. News coverage
continues to break reporting self-snapping related tragedy. Just this month,
for instance, an 18-year-old visiting a dam on a class trip attempted to take a
dramatic selfie while perched on a rock. The student lost his balance and
toppled into the water below. Another student dove in to try and save him, but
both students lost their lives. Similarly, an engineering student in Tamil Nadu
fell from a rock while attempting to take a group selfie and suffered fatal
head wounds. Previously, three students paused to take a group selfie in front
of an oncoming train and were fatally struck. The sad list goes on and on.
