Taking Selfies Is Now Considered A 'public Health Problem,' Requires 'safety Messaging,' Say Researchers

A study by the University of New South Wales concluded that selfies could actually be a "public health problem."

The research was published last September in the journal Medical Internet Research, citing data from several peer-reviewed studies conducted in the United States and Australia since 2011.

Meaningless selfies: People risk their lives to get the “perfect” photo.

The average age of the victims was 22 years, and most of them were female tourists.

“When I dug that way, I was surprised to see a lot of young women,” Cornell said.

Researchers say the risks of taking selfies vary from country to country.

“In the United States and Australia, people are injured or killed alone — usually by falling off cliffs.”

British tourist Madeleine Davies died in 2020 at the age of 21 after falling from a cliff in Sydney's Diamond Bay Nature Reserve.

The study concluded that “responsiveness to public health risk communications” is essential to public health problems.

“To date, little attention has been paid to reducing selfie-related incidents through direct messaging to users with behavior change methods or social media applications,” the researchers concluded.

“Sending safety messages directly to social media users may also be a wise measure,” the study notes.

Fox News Medical Contributor Dr. NYU Langone. Mark Siegel was not involved in the review of this study. But he agrees that selfie-related incidents represent a public health crisis.

“It also takes an emotional toll and is an unhealthy extension of our popular culture and social media pressures.”

“It's not just about the injury,” he told Fox News Digital via email. It introduces an "unhealthy psychological aspect to taking a real-life frame of mind."

“There is also an emotional toll, which is an unhealthy extension of our popular culture and social media pressures,” Siegel added.

Click here to subscribe to our health newsletter

Since this problem isn't going away, Colonel, getting hurt or killed by selfies is no laughing matter.

"People joke about it, but I don't think you should lose your life because of stupid mistakes that young people make," he told Fox News Digital.

"To overcome this problem, the younger generation is spreading bad influences, and this poses a threat to public health," he said.

“We have a responsibility to address this problem by communicating the risks to young people,” Cornell said. “This is a public health issue.”

The Colonel stressed the importance of personal responsibility and environmental awareness in preventing serious accidents.

Click here to access Fox News

The main limitation of the study is that it is "extremely difficult" to find data on the topic, he said.

“Selfie deaths aren't an editor's note, but they do happen,” Cornell said.

For more health articles, visit foxnews.com.com/health

Angelica Stabile is a digital lifestyle writer for Fox News.

Is social media harmful to your mental health? | Billy Parnell | TEDxRyersonU