In a famous lab trial, a chimp named Sultan put two interlocking sticks together and pulled down an elusive prize, a bunch of bananas hanging just out of arm’s reach.
Nearly a century later, eager tourists have conducted their own version of the experiment. Equipped with the camera extender known as a selfie stick, occasionally referred to as “the wand of narcissism,” they can now reach for flattering CinemaScope selfies wherever they go.
Art museums have watched this development nervously, fearing damage to their collections or to visitors, as users swing their sticks with abandon. Now they are taking action. One by one, museums across the United States have been imposing bans on using selfie sticks for photographs inside galleries (adding them to existing rules on umbrellas, backpacks, tripods and monopods), yet another example of how controlling overcrowding has become part of the museum mission.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington prohibited the sticks this month, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston plans to impose a ban. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been studying the matter for some time, has just decided that it, too, will forbid selfie sticks. (New signs will be posted soon.)
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In the spirit of scientific inquiry, Mr. Sreenivasan, the museum’s digital officer, bought a selfie stick at Walgreens . He took it with him on recent trips to the United Arab Emirates and Europe, where he saw, with alarm, thickets of selfie sticks at tourist attractions and museums.
“If it turned out that the selfie stick served some great purpose, we would defend it,” he said. “But it does not.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 15, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Museum Rules for Selfie Age: Talk Softly, and Carry No Stick. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
