Stop right where you are. The selfie you’re about to take could kill you.

It could, if you’re one of the millions of cell phone users who are smitten by the reckless trend of taking dangerous selfies.

Selfie-taking has become so popular that Google Trends labeled 2014 as “The Year of the Selfie.” Also on the rise is the attraction to taking selfies while in precarious and even life-threatening situations.

Consider, for example, the 19-year-old Texas father of two who died on September 2 after shooting himself in the neck during a selfie. Now his two children are fatherless.

Or, the two men in the Ural Mountains who died after posing with a live hand grenade. They were just supposed to pretend to pull the pin. But they really did.

In May, a Moscow woman took a selfie of herself in her office with a gun to her head. The gun went off. She survived. She was lucky.

Also in May, a Romanian woman died when she tried to take the “ultimate selfie” by posing with a friend atop a train when her leg touched a live wire above. It sent an electrical surge of 27,000 folds through her body. Her 17-year-old friend was subsequently hospitalized. She meant to shock her followers, but ended up shocking herself. Literally.

In India this past January, three students were killed while trying to take a selfie close to a moving train. I wonder what it was like for the train conductor and passengers.

This past July, a San Diego man was hospitalized after taking a selfie with a rattlesnake. It bit him. Not only did that selfie bite physically, but it also bit financially. The man’s medical bills ran to over $153,000.

The list is seemingly endless. Or, at least longer than it should be.

The daredevil selfie epidemic has become so bad that several governments and regulatory bodies are now treating it as a serious threat to public safety. Many of them, such as Russia’s Interior Ministry, have launched public education campaigns similar to those that were used to combat smoking and alcohol abuse.

Because of the potential for danger, the European Union has proposed a law to criminalize social media posts containing pictures of some of the world’s most “dangerous” tourist attractions, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and Rome’s Trevi fountain. This past week, the Indian government designated a “no-selfie zone” during India’s Hindu Kumbh Mela Festival (due to the threat of stampedes).

Selfie-taking isn’t fun and games anymore.

One could chalk selfie deaths up to stupidity, and I agree for the most part. But I think there’s an underlying cause that is deeply concerning.

Daredevil selfies aren’t just about making pleasant memories of excursions and vacations; they are about thrill-seeking and attracting attention to the point of endangering self and others.

Ohio State University researcher and assistant professor of communications, Jesse Fox, says that selfies tend to attract a certain type of person who already has the propensity to push beyond normal behavior.

In her research, she’s discovered that certain people exhibit the so-called Dark Triad of personality traits – narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

These kinds of folks are likely to go for the glory regardless of who gets hurt in the process.

In an interview with Reuters, Fox said, "It's all about me. It's putting me in the frame. I'm getting attention and when I post that to social media, I'm getting the confirmation that I need from other people that I'm awesome. You don't care about the tourist attraction you're destroying; you don't care about annoying people in your social media feed ... you're not even thinking about the consequences of your actions, so who cares if you're dangling off the side of the Eiffel Tower?"

Of course, not everyone who takes a crazy selfie is psychotic. But, the growing trend of daredevil selfies means that as a people we’re getting crazier and crazier.

It’s not only about those who take the risky selfies, but also about those who view them and encourage them. Folks won’t stop doing this silliness if we continue to egg them on. And by egging them on, we get pulled into the trend and tempted to be a little more radical in our own selfies.

You need to stop and think before you take that next selfie. It could be your last.