Young Australians are falling to their deaths while trying to take the perfect selfie

Dying for TikTok likes: Why so many young Australians are falling to their deaths while trying to take the perfect selfie

  • 2021 marked the highest number of accidental falls from cliffs in Australia
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics showed some 20 people fell from cliffs last year
  • Experts fear selfies are behind the growing trend with more people risking lives 

More Australians than ever before are dying after accidentally falling from cliffs with selfies possibly to blame, according to new data.

Figured from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released showed the number of people who died from accidental falls over the past year.

Some 3,747 people plunged to their deaths with 20 of them happening off cliffs.

This was the most falls from cliffs since the organisation began tallying the data in 2012 and raised fears the rise of selfies was behind the trend.

More Australians than ever before are dying after accidentally falling from cliffs with selfies possibly to blame, according to new data (pictured, Madalyn Davis who died in 2021)

Spain’s iO Foundation study found 379 people were killed while taking selfies around the world between January 2008 and July 2021.

Australia ranked the fifth highest with 15 fatalities with India listed at the top with 100 deaths and the US second with 39 deaths. 

University of Technology Sydney’s Kidman Centre director Dr Rachael Murrihy warned social media was a driving force behind the increase in deaths.

‘It is a normal part of adolescence to take risks and they take risks because that helps them to form their identity and figure out who they are,’ she told Herald Sun.

‘Unfortunately, TikTok provides a forum for them to do this but it’s not the healthy risk taking we would like to see in teenagers.

‘Neuroscience also tells us brains aren’t fully formed until age 25… so when they are at this age they are not fully able to anticipate the consequences of their actions.’

The latest statistics released by the ABS showed that three times as many people have died from accidental falls compared to Covid-19.

Some 61 per cent of the falls were by people aged 85 or over and happened from slipping over 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 the Grampians National Park in Victoria when she tumbled from the Boroka Lookout, near Halls Gap, in December 2020

Rosy Loomba, a 38-year-old mother-of-two from Craigieburn, north Melbourne, was visiting the Grampians National Park in Victoria when she tumbled from the Boroka Lookout, near Halls Gap, in December 2020

Australia was rocked by several accidental falls in 2020 with a young daughter and a mother killed in separate accidents.

Rosy Loomba, a 38-year-old mother-of-two from Craigieburn, north Melbourne, was visiting the Grampians National Park in Victoria when she tumbled from the Boroka Lookout, near Halls Gap, in December that year.

Her husband Basant and her two young sons saw their beloved wife and mother unexpectedly fall as she sought a photo at the popular beauty spot, just months after police warned tourists were risking their lives for selfies.

The community support worker slipped after climbing a safety barrier before tumbling 80m, witnesses said.

Madalyn Davis, 21, was watching the sunrise at Diamond Bay in the east of Sydney when she fell from the 30m cliff, a notorious selfie spot, on January 11, 2020. 

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