Opción B - 2 · Inglés PAU Navarra Ordinaria 2022

Opción B

DEADLY SELFIES: ARE THEY WORTH A LIKE ?

Let's face it, we've all gone a bit too far to snap that perfect shot. We perch a little too far on the edge, scale a bit too high up to get that right angle and even attempt to stop traffic for our Instagram feeds. But how far is too far? For those who don't know where to draw the line, the selfie and the wefie are old news. Enter the killfie – that killer shot taken on the spur of the moment while deliberately risking your life and your friends' lives – just for narcissism… and for likes.

For social media influencer Gigi Wu, it went horribly wrong. The 36-year-old Taiwanese was popularly known as the " bikini hiker " by thousands of her online followers. In January 2019, Wu ventured on a solo hike up Taiwan's Yushan Mountain. As she was making her way up to Taiwan's highest peak, Wu fell down a steep 30-metre ravine. Unable to move her lower body, she scrambled for her backpack and reached for her phone to ask for help, giving specific coordinates of her location. Bad weather delayed rescue efforts and Wu's dead body was recovered two days after the fall.

There was also the YouTube trio that perished at Shannon Falls in British Columbia last July. Megan Scraper, one of the members of the group, slipped when she stood on the edge at the top of the falls. Her two friends dove in to save her but the strong currents swept them away. All three plummeted 30 metres down the raging waterfall. It was believed that they were filming a segment for their High on Life YouTube channel where daredevil deeds are the norm. The study called "Selfies: A Boon or Bane?" states that not all those who die for the gram are social media influencers. Ordinary people make up an even bigger number of these deaths. This means that many selfie-related deaths have gone unreported, which also means that the numbers presented are just the tip of the iceberg.

However, why do people tread on dangerous ground for the sake of a couple of likes ? As an article in The San Diego Times points out "we do it because it's probably a way of measuring our self-worth. Some of us tend to measure popularity by the number of likes or the number of followers garnered. It's normal human behaviour to want to be accepted by others. In addition to this, today people are trying to prove that they did something. In the old days people went out to have an experience. Now they go out to record that they had that experience".

2. Read the following statements, decide whether they are true or false and justify your answer by quoting evidence from the text (1 point, 0,50 each).

a.

Gigi Wu reached the summit of Taiwan's Yushan Mountain.

TRUE

FALSE

b.

The rescue operation for Gigi Wu was called off owing to bad weather.

TRUE

FALSE