Challenge accepted?

This is a repost of an article from Axis. It is a reminder that all those dares we did when we were younger were not so harmless after all, and questions why we do them in the first place. 

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The Rise of the Challenges

A 12-year-old girl in Detroit, MI won’t be starting school as planned. Instead, she’ll be in the hospital, undergoing major surgeries and recovering from severe burns. What happened? The Internet and herself.

You see, she was attempting the “fire challenge”—going back as far as 2012—which involves pouring a small amount of rubbing alcohol on oneself and lighting it on fire because, presumably, the fire will go out quickly since rubbing alcohol burns rapidly. Of course, like all challenges, it must be filmed and subsequently posted to various social media platforms in the hopes it will garner more views, likes, follows, and subscribes. And this, like the “cinnamon challenge” or “Tide Pod challenge” leaves us all wondering: Why?

Why are these challenges (many of which are dangerous, if not life-threatening) so appealing to teens? Don’t they see the danger in lighting oneself on fire or eating dangerous chemicals? And if they do, what’s so compelling that they’re willing to do it anyway? Since we can’t interview everyone who’s ever participated or contemplated doing so, we can only speculate, but we believe there are 3 main contributing factors.

1. Peer pressure and/or social status. Most of Gen Z wasn’t even born when Facebook was invented, and social media is so ingrained in their lives that it’s normal to want more followers, likes, and views in order to feel validated. So if a challenge will help boost their reach, why not?
2. “It won’t happen to me.” If teens have watched videos of others’ doing challenges, then they’ve definitelyseen the failed attempts. And yet, they continue to participate, bringing us to wonder if the idea that they’re invincible or that they’re young and will live forever subconsciously influences them to believe that others might get hurt, but they won’t.
3. Street cred. In generations past, the “cool” kids took risks by driving their cars too fast or by smoking or drinking or otherwise breaking the rules. Such risky behavior was seen as proof that the person wasn’t living a “safe” life, that he/she was milking life for all it was worth (YOLO). Maybe that perception has now evolved to include trying dangerous challenges...or at least some of participants hope it has.

Have your students participated in any of the challenges? Ask them why. Get them to really analyze it (“It was fun” doesn’t suffice; why was it fun?). Though we may not understand “teens these days,” we can enter their world by taking the time to understand it before we judge it or write it off completely. By doing so, we may even earn the right to speak wisdom and perspective into it.