Dear Everyone, Your Selfie Is Not Worth Your Life
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Fordham University and to the family and friends of Sydney Monfries.
Recently Fordham University in New York suffered a great loss. 22-year-old Sydney Monfries was climbing the campus's bell tower to take a photo of the New York skyline but tragically fell to her death.
This incredibly tragic incident, unfortunately, hits way too close to home for me and young people everywhere. With social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat growing at extremely rapid popularity rates, the pressure to look a certain way online can make us do things that are actually incredibly dangerous. How many pictures have we seen of influencers, as well as our friends and maybe even us, standing on the edge of cliffs, bridges, or even as far as the side of the roof of a skyscraper?
With the ever-growing stigma to have a well-curated and adventurous social media feed, these pictures are becoming the go-to travel pictures to take. This is not the only case of people dying from attempting to take selfies or pictures. The Washington Post reported that last year researchers in India reported that more than 250 people across the globe have died while taking selfies in the past 6 years. This is an epidemic that needs to end. Your life is not worth that picture.
I know that I personally have taken risky pictures similar to these with my friends, and yet we didn't think anything of it. Risking your life for an Instagrammable moment is not worth it. We need to become more conscious of the risks associated with these trends. Please, please, please, next time before you go to take that dangerous photo, ask yourself is it really worth it? It could have been any one of us just trying to get the perfect picture, and that is what makes this so scary.
Please, everyone, don't risk your life for that selfie or picture. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Sydney Monfries and the Fordham University family.
