>
Dying for TikTok Loves: Why So Many Young Australians Die Trying to Take the Perfect Selfie
- 2021 marked the highest number of accidental cliff falls in Australia
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that about 20 people fell from cliffs last year
- Experts fear selfies are behind growing trend of more people risking lives
According to new data, more Australians than ever before are dying after accidentally falling off cliffs with possible selfies as the culprit.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the number of people who have died from a fall in the past year.
About 3,747 people collapsed to their deaths, 20 of them from cliffs.
This was the most cliff falls since the organization began counting the data in 2012, sparking fears that the rise of selfies was behind the trend.
New data says more Australians than ever are dying after accidentally falling off cliffs with selfies that may be to blame (pictured, Madalyn Davis who died in 2021)
The Spanish iO Foundation investigation found that between January 2008 and July 2021, 379 people were killed while taking selfies around the world.
Australia was in fifth place with 15 fatalities, India at the top with 100 deaths and the US in second place with 39 deaths.
dr. Rachael Murrihy, director of the Kidman Center at the University of Technology Sydney, warned that social media was a driving force behind the increase in deaths.
“It’s a normal part of adolescence to take risks and they take risks because that helps them form their identity and figure out who they are,” she said. Herald Sun.
“Unfortunately, TikTok offers them a forum to do this, but it’s not the healthy risk-taking we’d like to see in teens.
“Neuroscience also tells us that brains aren’t fully formed until age 25…so when they’re at this age, they can’t fully anticipate the consequences of their actions.”
The latest statistics from the ABS show that three times as many people have died as a result of falls compared to Covid-19.
About 61 percent of falls were caused by people aged 85 or older and were caused by slips or falling out of bed.
Thirty-four people had died after falling from a building or structure while five were skating, skiing or snowboarding.
Rosy Loomba, a 38-year-old mother of two from Craigieburn, north Melbourne, was visiting Victoria’s Grampians National Park when she tumbled off Boroka Lookout, near Halls Gap, in December 2020.
Australia was rocked in 2020 by several falls that killed a young daughter and a mother in separate accidents.
Rosy Loomba, a 38-year-old mother of two from Craigieburn, north Melbourne, was visiting Victoria’s Grampians National Park in December of that year when she tumbled off Boroka Lookout at Halls Gap.
Her husband Basant and her two young sons saw their beloved wife and mother unexpectedly fall while looking for a photo at the popular beauty spot, just months after police warned that tourists were risking their lives for selfies.
The social worker slipped after climbing a guardrail before falling 80 meters, witnesses said.
Madalyn Davis, 21, was watching the sunrise in Diamond Bay in eastern Sydney when she fell off the 100-foot (30-meter) cliff, an infamous selfie spot, on January 11, 2020.