So finally, its official— the selfie obsession is dangerous. For this year, death toll by selfie related accidents exceed that of shark attacks, as 8 people have been killed by shark attacks and 12 people were clinched by death from taking precarious selfies.
Though it’s not the most viable actuarial report and provides no cause and effect relationship, it simply is a premonition to every selfieholic. We know that this trend is particularly common in teens and therefore, parents must reconsider the smartphone use policy with their kids.
The latest incident of selfie related death took place in India, when a 66-year old tourist from Japan, Hideto Ueda fell from the staircase of Taj Mahal.
The Problem
The problem is that, selfie trend, unlike other social media trends doesn’t count as a dangerous thing to do. And as teens always believe that they are doing the right thing, it’s even more difficult to convince them with safe use of their phone’s front camera.
Identifying a Selfie Addict
It’s not really difficult to identify if your teen is a selfie addict. You can simply follow your kids on Instagram or Facebook and check their proportion of selfies to the total photos uploaded. If your kid owns a selfie stick or any other related selfie gadget, “he is one of ‘them”.
The Solution
The solution is based on a two-tier process. First, parents need to have a better look at what their kids are up to. It involves observing how frequent your child uses their phone for taking selfies. How imbecile your teen can be with taking selfies also depends on their personality. Are they risk averse or risk takers? That too involves how adventurous they consider themselves to be.
Parent can talk to their teens about the risks associated with the selfie trend. A more gruesome way would be put forth the example of all the deceased people in front of your child. Parents can also set no-phone zones outside the house. If they find it difficult to do so, they can install a parental control app like TrackMyFone onto their kids’ smartphones that can remotely lock any monitored device.
The second part of the process rests with the authorities who should ban using smartphone’s camera around potentially dangerous places. Disney is amongst those who have banned contraptions due to ‘safety concerns’.
It’s evident that teens are more vulnerable to Peer Pressure and therefore, their chances of ending up in some sort of selfie trouble might also be greater than the other segments of the population. So make sure they are safe while taking selfies.
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