Lately selfies have been the subject of several headlines in different print and digital newspapers. The reasons? Several, some claim that they bring about obsessive and mental problems, others that they cause accidents, deaths of themselves and others.
But before getting into the world of selfies, let's see their concept.
Definition of Selfie
A selfie is a self-portrait. Generally in the Internet world, it refers to a photograph that one takes oneself with a mobile device, with the idea of publishing it online on a social network.
Selfies
(click on the photos to enlarge)
Selfies and Mental Problems
Brunel University in London conducted a study to understand the behavior of some people to show themselves on the Internet.
After a compilation and analysis of approximately 550 Facebook user profiles, they concluded that these people may have some type of psychological, self-esteem and mental problems, motivated by narcissism. Added to this study is one carried out by the University of Ohio on 800 men between 18 and 48 years old, which stated that they were prone to showing signs of psychopathy.
Selfies and seduction
Those who tend to share a lot of images doing sports, at the gym or any social event that comes their way, seek to attract attention, until they become an unfounded mix of obsession and addiction.
Showing their body, with occasional outfits, nudes, or just faces. Among the most famous we see emblematic characters like Kim, JLO among others, who are constantly uploading their selfies to capture the attention of their followers, competition among their peers and why not, even raising their ego showing that they still conquer the passage of time.
Extreme Selfies
A new milestone has occurred since selfies became popular. Since 2014, 50 deaths have been recorded directly linked to this activity.
And it is that need to take a selfie in the face of a challenge or an achievement, when extreme fans decide to photograph themselves, risking their lives in full action to "immortalize that moment", which unfortunately in many cases have caused death or irreparable physical damage.
I am left with a phrase from the British newspaper "The Telegraph" that says "in the last year there have been more deaths from selfies than from shark attacks" something unusual for what is supposed to be a hobby.
One fact... India is by far the country with the most deaths caused by selfies, so much so that they are evaluating a ban on the activity.
Animal Selfies
I didn't know how to title this point, but when I refer to “Animal”; and with the forgiveness of all of them; I'm referring to these misfits who, by taking a selfie with an animal, cause its death.
Someone days ago classified them as "selfie predators". One of the cases that had the most impact in the media was the poor baby dolphin with the tragic outcome that led to him losing his life due to an individual who took him out of the water to take a selfie on the Atlantic Coast, more precisely, in February 2016 on the Santa Teresita beaches, Argentina. Unfortunately, other recent cases tarnish the selfies with blood, recently a Bulgarian tourist killed a swan in Macedonia and a peacock suffered the same fate in a zoo in China, in short, everyone is as they can.
In other parts of the world, however, as I saw in a video that went viral very recently, people were helping a school of dolphins to return to the water because for unknown reasons are not clear, they had "ran aground" on a beach. That's right, there is still hope in human beings... it's a shame there are very few of them.
