Social media is an everyday occurrence for most young people, but it can become dangerous, if we take into account the various challenges that circulate from time to time.
Using social media is one of the favorite pastimes of most people today, especially teenagers. Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook , and other similar platforms are used by almost all young people under the age of 20.
See also: TikTok: 1 billion users use the app every month
The time that teenagers spend in front of a screen, and especially on these services, has increased significantly over the last year and a half, since COVID-19 , confining us to our homes for a very long period of time.
To combat boredom, many people have turned to social media platforms that allow them to have fun and connect with loved ones. One way that many teenagers have been spending their time during quarantine has been by participating in various social media challenges. Of course, challenges have been around for years on social media, but this time around, new ones have emerged.
Many of these online challenges can prove to be very fun and bring people even closer together.
However, there are also some challenges that promote risky behaviors and sometimes have disastrous consequences. In fact, these consequences can be long-lasting.
In fact, in recent years, some challenges have gone viral that make you wonder how there are people who think about such things and even more so how there are people who decide to try them!
Any reasonable person should understand the danger, but also how foolish it is to engage in all this, since the only thing they can gain is an injury. And that is probably the best-case scenario.
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It may sound extreme, but there are cases where people have lost their lives while participating in one of these dangerous challenges.
As one can understand, most of the participants are teenagers.
Here we will look at some of the most dangerous challenges that have circulated on social media in recent years, as well as their effects, in the hope that the danger will be understood and that everyone will find that all of this makes no sense.
The Ice and Salt Challenge
This is a simple challenge, which was particularly popular for a few years in America and Europe.
In the Ice and Salt Challenge, a person applies salt to a spot on their skin and then presses an ice cube on top. The winner is the person who can withstand the pain the longest. The salt causes the temperature of the ice to drop, causing a burn to the person.
Although most people suffered a mild burn, there were cases of children who developed third-degree burns due to the challenge.
Duct Tape Challenge
It started in 2016 and invited people to stand on a wall or a chair, taped together.
The goal of the challenge was to free people from the film.
The Duct Tape Challenge still pops up from time to time on social media.
Why is it considered dangerous? As you can probably imagine, participants can face serious injuries. There have been cases of people hitting their heads on furniture or even the floor as they fell off the wall. In 2016, a 14-year-old from Washington suffered an aneurysm after hitting his head on a window frame during the challenge.
Unfortunately, this incident didn't stop other young people from trying it, with the trend remaining quite popular at least until 2018.
Outlet Challenge
A more recent and perhaps more dangerous challenge, which involved partially inserting a smartphone charger into a socket and placing a coin on the exposed protrusions.
This leads to short circuits and in some cases can cause a fire.
Additionally, participants in this challenge are at risk of getting electrocuted.
The challenge was quite popular in schools abroad, with teachers particularly concerned about the new trend. In addition, the fire department had issued warnings and asked parents to monitor teenagers.
Fire Challenge
One of the most dangerous and stupid challenges that have been released on social media.
It began in 2014 and showed people pouring a flammable liquid on themselves and setting themselves on fire.
The fire could literally consume the entire body of the participants.
Although any reasonable person would consider this challenge extremely stupid, there were people who tried it.
In one of the most notorious cases, a 12-year-old suffered third-degree burns in 2018. A year later, a boy of the same age from Michigan was hospitalized with second-degree burns. Even when the burns are not extreme, the chemicals and smoke that participants inhale can cause long-term damage to their lungs.
Car Surfing challenge
As one can imagine, we are talking about a challenge in which the participant does something like surfing on the roof of a moving car.
This is not a completely new challenge, as car surfing has existed since the mid-1980s.
However, social media has helped spread this idea to teenagers, who don't think about the risk at all.
In 2016, the Car Surfing challenge was responsible for the deaths of at least seven people, most of whom were 21 years old and under.
In many cases, people fell out of the car, causing them to seriously hit the pavement or other things around them.
For some, the injuries were fatal. Other participants were luckier, suffering serious injuries.
Hot water challenge
Simple enough, dangerous enough. Makes you wonder why people have such stupid ideas. Usually someone pours boiling water on an unsuspecting or sleeping friend. Sometimes, people are awake and willingly participate in the challenge. Other times, they pour the water on themselves.
You would expect that people over the age of 4 would be able to understand the dangers of pouring boiling water on the human body.
Although participants probably don't want to hurt their friends, they usually end up burning them badly, especially when the water is poured in their face.
Unfortunately, there have been cases of serious burns, such as an 11-year-old girl who had to be rushed to the hospital after her friend poured boiling water on her.
There is also a case of an 8-year-old from Florida who died from injuries sustained when he drank a large amount of boiling water, another version of the challenge.
The Hot water Challenge appeared around 2017 and was popular until 2018.
Later, it was replaced by another Challenge that involves throwing hot water into the air during the winter to create beautiful images, since in very cold environments water freezes instantly while in the air.
Coronavirus challenge
Moving on to the most recent challenges, we have the coronavirus challenge, which appeared in March 2020, when the pandemic had begun to spread to more and more countries, but there were still many people who did not take the new virus seriously.
Perhaps the most famous case, which caused a stir on social media, is that of a girl who filmed herself licking an airplane toilet seat, doing what she called the "coronavirus challenge.".
There is no evidence that someone will get COVID-19 from licking a toilet seat, but the thought alone is disgusting.
However, the trend spread and various people began to do the challenge by licking various things that carry germs, such as the small pillars that are in the subway for us to hold on to.
One participant tested positive for COVID a few days after the challenge, although there's no way to prove that was the cause. Fortunately, it seems like only a few people tried this silly challenge.
Milk Crate Challenge
It is one of the newest social media challenges, which is particularly popular in the United States. In it, the participant climbs a pyramid of crates, trying to reach the top and descend from the other side.
See also: Milk Crate Challenge: The viral challenge that causes injuries
Why is it dangerous? Of course, because the pyramid is very unstable and the participant will most likely end up on the ground with a bad injury.
Doctors in the United States are warning young people to avoid this new trend, as it could land them in the hospital, at a time when the healthcare system is being tested due to COVID-19. So far, challenge participants have been taken to the hospital with broken wrists, broken ribs, dislocated shoulders, and even spinal cord injuries.
The above shows how much danger teenagers can put themselves in because of something becoming trendy on social media. Parents should be very careful and advise their children about the dangers. However, teenagers themselves should think that doing what everyone else is doing or putting themselves in danger for no reason at all does not make them cool.
Therefore, don't try anything that may have negative consequences and stay safe!
