Read the article The selfie-takers dying just to prove how alive they are at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/19/the-selfie-takers-dying-just-to-prove-how-alive-they-are and comment on it. Present your experiences as well.
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Maybe I'm strange but I have always laughed when I heard about somebody who fell from a bridge becouse he took selfie. It is amazing that people risk their life because they want to be cool. I personally think that this is a way to eliminate stupid people. Now people life in social media and comment and give opinion about everything. In my opinion you should be quiet becaouse everyone can check who you are and your opinion about every topic. This activity gives more problems than profit.
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ReplyDeleteI don't want to be rude, but I prefer other title od this article: "How stupidity works. How is important to become popular". I'm schocked, that the "selfie trend" grew in so stupid and risky way. Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned, but If I take photo in a "selfie style" I'm sure that this photo would be normal, no i.eg. close to the burning building... Young society is getting worse and worse... (author Monika D)
ReplyDeleteNowadays, social media is very important among young people. Applications like facebook, insragram and snapchat encourage young people to share events and photos of their lives. Everyone wants to have a lot of "likes" because it improves their self-esteem.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the level of stupidity is increasing year by year, and ordinary selfie in a normal place is not enough for some weird people. Nowadays people are able to do anything to become popular on the internet, im sorry with these people and I agree with Jack, "that is a way to eliminate stupid people."... in this mad world.
Maybe that's just the way it is? Every generation have it's problems. Like sects, porn, drugs, communism.. Nowadays when virtual reality mixes with the real world, people (not only young) have to learn how to avoid new kind of dangers. Maybe this pursue for fame is just one of them?
ReplyDeleteI heard a lot about this topic. What’s more I know story about polish guy, who jumped from bridge and died, here in Warsaw, 2 years ago. On the first sight, it’s sounds funny for me but it’s not. I can’t imagine how those people must be irresponsible, how ungrateful. It’s a worldwide problem. Every story is very original, one take selfie on mountain, another on tracks. What connect everyone? They nuts. I’d like to know if people becoming more stupid or they always were? I like to take selfie, but in normal circumstances, on a party, on a beach or even in the house. Let’s not go crazy. Every example sounds weird. Of course, it’s touching, but who don’t have a friend who could do that? I’ve got a few on my mind. World is a messy place with a lot people like those from article. Maybe they were really foolish? I don’t know, I know that I’m not and I’m sure that we’ll here about it more than once. By the way, title is a nice word play.
ReplyDeleteI believe we can distinguish two kind of selfies. First is the one when there is no one around who you could ask to take a photo. Second is the one when people take photo to brag about places they visted or activities they have done. While the first one can be seen as reasonable reason, the second one is tottaly beyond reason. If the people who you care about and want to share expereinece with still need photo to believe you, well here is the problem.
ReplyDeleteEven though if you really want to take a photo, do it has to be a selfie? Those three boys trying to take a selfie. They could have nominate one of the boys to take a photo of rest of them and then change the photo taker person. It would still be silly and dangerous, but it would give them higher chance to escape. Imaginie this event to take place few years ago, before selfie was "invented". They wouldn't even thought about taking selfie. From my side the problem is lying in people mind rather than in selfie itself.
Everyone taking a selfie nowadays. It's very popular among the younger generation. I think it's a new form of communication. People like to share their life and they constantly seek for acceptance. So, maybe when somebody playing with death by taking just a mere photo, means that he desperately needs help. Even if this person seems happy and full of enthusiasm on the screen, it doesn't necessarily means that he's alright and he just want to show off. People don't like to show their week side, that's why they doing stupid things. Things that threaten their own life. I think when we see this kind of act, we should immediately start to perform a rescue operation. Maybe just a small talk with a "suicider" can change his life and speaks to his reason.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear the word 'selfie' it always reminds me this video
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy8Yt-P614w
This time nothing happened to anyone. Unfortunately more and more often hear about worse cases. Maybe we're just too focused on ourselves? Or we really want to impress someone with such a picture. It's hard to say, but I totally agree with ~michi jin, and probably I'm old fashioned too :D
The problem with selfie is huge, but behaving rationally we should not for example, be hit by the train
I already wrote about my engagement in social media apps in my previous post, two weeks ago. I gave examples where I proved that social media platforms can be useful. I think most people don´t know how use them in a beneficial way though. I have never taken a selfie. I don´t have many photos on my social media platforms. It truly scares me when people share their entire private lives by means of pictures. I have once found a picture depicting a newly born child just moments after birth with umbilical cord still uncut. Examples of people losing their lives while taking a selfie are of course very scary, but they are exceptions. Nowadays, I think we can observe many serious problems related to people´s addition to social media platforms. This problem concerns many people. Above all, many of our friends limit themselves to their virtual world and are unable to make contact in the real world.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this article. Nowadays people have problem with thinking consciously. In my opinion becoming popular doing many strange and dangerous things is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteFor me this is a big problem among many young people. I am not going to become popular at any price.
I think that this behavior is entirely a misunderstanding. I know that young people is doing everything to impress others, but unfortunately doing it wrong. Each of these individuals can be awarded the Darwin award. Not to be cruel, but isn't this some sort of natural selection?
ReplyDeleteSocial media are very popular nowadays and it’s the reason why selfies become so popular. For me it’s really stupid to risk my life to get more likes and be popular. I rather like to live in real life than online.
ReplyDeleteAs it is already said before. It's kind of stupidity, which can be called in other words like "natural selection".
ReplyDeleteI really like two terms from the article: "killfies" and "the sirens sing for selfie-takers" :)
Everyday when we are going through the cities streets we can see many people which are making stupid faces to the phone etc. Mostly it's not as dangerous as described in article, but just stupid/funny for others. And also sometimes annoying. Especially in places where are many people and you are hurrying up but you cannot go forward because they need to make duckface at least one time per 10 minutes :)
This article reminds me about latest madness about the mobile game “Pokémon Go”. I read many articles about people who died during playing this game, for example a man who fell off the 90-foot cliff, when he was hunting on a rare Pokémon. I also saw many people in Poland who were playing this game while driving the car, what could have led to some unfortunate accidents. I think that the problem of “selfie” is the same problem which caused many death with “Pokémon Go” game. People don’t know how to use modern technology, they are absorbed by virtual world, they are doing stupid thinks, they don’t think about consequences of their’s actions and it leads to such effect. People prefer to curry favour to others, rather than to think about themselves and their’s health.
ReplyDeleteKillfies is one of many problems of modern world. We live in internet reality, we need to express other what we do. For example if I have a worse day, I took a photo and shared it on social media profiles. Why? Maybe, because I expecting for nice comments,and likes (but I am smart woman, and I know that my mood is dependent on my thoughts). However I feel addicted of using social media, I need to look at my profiles, for new comments likes. In my opinion "killfies" authors have above average, need to show up on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI never took a dangerous selfie- I don't need it. However last time, I saw a short video, with model who had held photographer hand, and she could falling down in every second, but she took risk to create beauty "killfies" on a scaffolding building in Dubai.
I don't understand why people take such a huge risk, but in my opinion we should to talk more about dangerous phenomenon.
I believe that every Internet user at some point has seen killfies or similar videos. I’m going to be brutal in my judgement, but I perceive it as a manifest of stupidity which is conduced only to gain likes, new followers or additional subscriptions. None of these has a real value.
ReplyDeleteI have seen many compilations of videos called ‘people are awesome 2017’ or ‘the most brave people March 2017’. What you can find on these videos? People doing push ups on the edge of the roof of skyscraper. Guy climbing on the top of electric pole. Another man skateboarding on the roofs of houses and then hanging on the edge of the roof using only 3 fingers. How cool is that, right?
Let’s analyse it. Killfies or their video equivalents have no artistic value. People are not performing any extraordinary or hard to follow activities on them. Very often they are poor quality, so also from technical point of view, they are not interesting. So actually the only thing which brings other people attention to them is that there’s hidden message – ‘Hey, look! I’m doing something which is forbidden, something that requires tons of courage. Isn’t that awesome? Admire me!’.
But is it really matter of courage? I believe the border of being brave and stupid is very, very thin. Moreover I think it’s not easy to kill popularity of such posts. And this unluckily is a seed which may be planted in the wrong ground of young people willing to follow it. Which may have fatal results.
But as Albert Einstein said: two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.
This is very sad article but what can we say it’s that social media drives our life. The most important thing for many young people is the number of likes and they are racing with new ideas to get more fans. It’s a hard role to be a parent in this specific time. Everything what we do we should do with moderation.
ReplyDeleteI think that Einstein's quote reminded by Krzysztof fits here perfectly :) Such deaths show that natural selection still works and gene pools of the stupidest individuals will not be passed to the next generation. Such articles make me laugh for a minute or two and nothing more. I might be also a little bit old-fashioned but I really don't understand selfies, especially those dangerous ones.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I know that before the internet children were playing in challenges as well, but now it's all on a much bigger scale. I think that truth-or-dare game is still popular. On YouTube, there are a lot of videos showing people take part in various challenges. Maybe such dangerous selfies are proofs that people really did something that they claim they did - You know: "pic or it didn't happen!" ;)
I agree with Marta. Magic numbers (subscriptions, likes etd) are most important for young people. They never mind about real best friends in real world. Virtual reality is most important for them. It is horrible. I think that I will talk in the future about the virtual dangers with my children.
ReplyDeleteI think that this article only superficially touches the very difficult issue. We live in very strange times. Today teenager are raised literally in the Internet. There are they are on every question looking for answers. Slowly the Internet becomes a doctor, sexologist and a window to them for the 'real' world. The real world conenects with the virtual. Human value determines the number of views and claws up on YouTube. In such a world it is hardly suprising that people are doing crazy things and they are not wondering about the consequences, because they already saw it on Youtube where everyone (probably) survived and the viewer tried not to laugh beacause the video was titled "try not to laugh". It's up to us whether we will go with 'the river' and we will pull it in or we will find enought strength in us to be able to think and make decisions ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry, but selfie, it seems for me so stupid phenomena. I understand that people want to be liked, to be fun, to be have cool photos, that many friends can comment. But every activity has to have sense and limits. If I want have photo, I should where are my limits.
ReplyDeleteThe worst aspects of selfie is that you are doing it by adjusting your position in rear direction.
Fame can sometimes take us to the grave. People do not even think about risk which they are taking. They do it for some kind of pleasure, or maybe they want to show superiority over others. It is also connected with the lack of privacy, such people shares information about everything with almost everyone. It is terribly silly to take “super pictures”, it is no more game as was said people are dying because of it.
ReplyDeleteIt's normal for people to have a certain need for attention, a need to be noticed. In modern times though It may grow to dangerous levels. In the era of globalisation and internet it's easier than ever to become famous for whatever reason and satisfy those needs. Unfortunatelly some people just don't know when and where to stop, they let their cravings for fame take over enough to put them in harms way. I guess we need to start to teach the kids in schools in a more modern fashion and inform them of such dangers that go hand in hand with these time's blessings
ReplyDeleteWe live in a difficult times in which we all have problems - obesity, alcoholism, anorexia, addiction to cigarettes, drugs, gambling or excessive aggression. In my opinion, each of these problems is due to the fact that we are too weak and we are struggling with everyday problems, so we are looking for a way of escape, a distraction. The development of technology has allowed us to escape to the virtual world. There we find new addictions - pornography, the internet, social media, etc. When I hear about killfies it comes to my mind the desperate desire to catch an attention and calling for help. Fortunately, I have never witnessed such situation.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Jacek Walczak. It's just plain stupid. If you want to be famous, then do something that others would appreciate. Dying because of selfie? Come on... I can understand people that take selfie with their friends on party, at the wedding or conference etc. But taking selfie with crocodile as a background is like telling - hey, I want to withdraw my genes from humanity gene pool!
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