If there's a fire, please exit the building before putting it on social media.
Please don’t risk your life for social media. | Photo by Oh Yeah Totally.

There recently have been cases of individuals taking selfies in rather dangerous locations and many have lost their lives while trying to have their few seconds of fame.

Here are a couple of recent headlines that you should heed before taking a high-risk selfie:

  • Last year (2014), a Russian teenager plunged 30ft to her death while trying to take a selfie on top of a railway bridge in St. Petersburg. It wasn’t falling off the bridge that killed her. She was eletrocuted when she slipped and grabbed a high-tension cable to save herself. 
  • This year (2015), a Houston teenager accidentally shot himself in the throat while taking a selfie with a loaded gun. He was due to start community college the next day. Well, he lost that chance, all for a few minutes of fame. Was it worth it?

In fact, the death rate caused by selfies became so high that Mashable came up with an article titled ‘More People Have Died from Selfies than Shark Attacks This Year‘.

What in the world has mankind turned into? Why are we risking our lives to be a ‘social media martyr’? We should be celebrating selfies with our family and friends. Are extraordinary selfies so special that we have to endanger our lives for it? I quite like my selfies (though I rarely take them because I can always get someone to take it for me) but I love my life too much to risk for a selfie over the edge.

The reason why I’m talking about selfies and unnecessary deaths is because of my eventful morning. No more than an hour of me sitting at my workstation when the electricity went out like a fluttering candle in the wind. POOF! Just like that. My colleagues and I sat at our places, wondering what was going on and joked about how we should be allowed to leave early if this persists until lunch time. In our oblivion, we hadn’t realized that there was a fault in the building’s electrical system which triggered the fire alarm and an announcement came over the PA system, instructing the employees and staff to vacate the block. From where we sat, our department had no speaker systems nor any fire alarms installed. The nearest alarm was at the exit of the first department on the floor. We didn’t Tweet about it but we were certainly making light of the situation.

Only after a phone call to one of my colleagues that we were supposed to exit the building. We did, but by the time we came down to Ground Floor, everyone was going back up because there were no major issues and that the building management was investigating the cause of the blackout. Thankfully, it was a false alarm. But what if it wasn’t? What if something really was going on, and we didn’t hear anything. I most certainly won’t be sitting here, sharing blog posts to you.

We may not have taken selfies of the inferno and its fiery tongues licking the ceilings behind us. We may not have updated our Facebook statuses on how we’re planking or posing in front of the fire. We may not have Instagrammed ourselves in a burning office. But we still would have perished because we didn’t hear any screeching alarms or PA announcements.

Having said that, if there is a fire somewhere near you, please leave the building before putting it on social media. Pay attention while you’re walking, because your Facebook status updates can wait.