This article brings up a great discussion on how social media can affect one’s mental health. In my analysis, i brought up how the internet itself is addicting so the fact that Alice discusses how many professionals say that social media can have a negative impact on the younger youth or even the newer generation is very believable especially with the tide pods epidemic where kids and teens were eating them as a challenge. 

How do we go about this? What really needs to change? 

I believe that obviously you’re not going to be able to hide everything from your kids because whether you like it or not, kids are going to get into things no matter what you do. But because people have become so addicted, so focused on things like the internet, maybe getting the newer generation involved in other things besides the internet, maybe their interests and fixations will shift?

Teens and Internet Challenges: What now?

Teens and internet challenges is definitely something that i believe parents should be more aware of. It seems like everyday, kids look for more ways to be in trend but in a very dangerous way so with this in mind, what do we do? how do we handle this?

I believe that parents should have sit downs with their kids to explain how serious this whole thing is and how they shouldn’t put themselves in harms way just for the sake of being popular. Be aware of any signs that show that they’re participating in dangerous things and of course just be involved. Its one thing to be aware, but its another to actually be involved with your kids instead of just talking at them.

What Is Internet Addiction?

Internet addiction can be defined as an impulse control disorder related to online activity which interferes with someone’s emotional, social or physical state in a negative way. An internet user may develop an addiction to social media, pornography, online dating, gambling or video games. Internet addiction affects young people the most since most of internet activities like social media and video games are targeted to them. Almost every high school student owns an smartphone with immediate access to the internet at all times. However, Internet addiction can happen to anyone. 

I wouldn’t recommend watching this slideshow unless you really had the stomach for it but its things like this that make me question why we’re even allowed to have the internet anymore. The more i look for information, the more i don’t understand why humans do the things that they do.

Lately it seems as if teens and even kids in general are becoming more and more obsessed with the internet. I know for some its hard to understand or even accept but an addiction to the internet is a real thing and according to FCD prevention works, “Technology addiction can be defined as frequent and obsessive technology-related behavior increasingly practiced despite negative consequences to the user of the technology.” which seems to kind of line up with the whole internet fad stage and why teens participate in these fads?

I added this video onto the thread to give people a better idea of what kind of challenges people have been participating in especially last year. Most of the challenges in this compilation are completely ridiculous and its crazy to even think that people are okay with doing things that can and most likely will put them in harms way. 

It’s understandable that people that naturally people will laugh at the expense of others, but no amount of followers, subscribers or even numbers are worth the amount of danger you could put yourself in. 

Internet Fads

I’ve never been one to express any kind of interest in internet fads because the ones that are really popular always seem to lead to some kind of trouble or you even risk putting yourself in serious harm. From the choking challenge, to the internet challenge, it all just seems too much. I’ve always wondered why people would put themselves in harms way just for the sake of being popular? It has also become apparent to me that with the newer generation, its become more apparent for people to gain fame and popularity over the dumbest things just because of the bandwagon concept. A group of people start to comment on something and next thing that happens is instant fame. The most unnecessary people gain popularity and like the domino affect, its like a never ending cycle. Why is that?

Of all the challenges in the world, this is the one that truly takes the cake. Condom snorting (a fad that should’ve never been a thing), is one of the most dangerous challenges because people who participate in it risk suffocating themselves during the process. According to Mr Stephen Enriquez in the KABB report: "These days our teens are doing everything for likes, views and subscribers.” and this is very true. These days everything is all about the “clout”, the numbers and the popularity whether it may be good or bad. What is your view on the condom challenge?

Youtube outside of instagram, twitter and Facebook is one of the best places to go viral, hence why a lot of teens were doing the challenge on there (to make sure they got all the views they could).

In my opinion, youtube did a great job of pulling the videos off of their platform to begin with and i say this because this just shows kids that they will not allow their platform to be used to motivate other kids to make such a horrendous mistake. Challenges like these are extremely dangerous

I found this article to be interesting only because it adds a different perspective as to why teens/young adults find it so interesting to participate in these challenges. 

The article also lists the various amounts of challenges that a lot of teens have done over the years that were not only harmful but very strange. For some reason a lot of teens find it interesting to hurt themselves with these kind of activities? Why is this a thing? Why do people find this behavior acceptable? 

in my opinion, a lot of the rave that comes from participating in these internet challenges that in reality actually hurts us, comes from the fact that the newer generation especially are a bunch of ‘clout’ or popularity chasers. This new generations care more about trending than they do their safety. Crazy right? Never in a million years did i think that it was possible to get here and yet here we are. 

Introduction

For my curation project, i chose my topic to be about How social media challenges lead teenagers to hurt themselves.

Over the years, there have been a spike in challenges that a lot of teens/ young adults partake in and its baffling to see what they're participating in. From the cinnamon challenge, to dousing your hands in a flammable fluid and lighting your hand on fire, to borderline choking someone out so they get the feeling of a high to now the biggest craze that was all over the Internet is the the tidepod challenge. This "challenge has gotten so out of hand that youtube has moved to remove all videos of those doing the challenge and the tide company has even taken the initiative to stop selling the pods after a certain point. When it comes to the younger, newer generations, a lot of them seem to have a follow the leader complex especially when it comes to gaining social media fame.

For this assignment i considered utilizing my own personal platforms on tumblr, twitter, and Instagram and youtube. A platform that a lot of people typically post their challenges and attempts at these challenges. I hope that throughout my analysis process, i discover why people do what they do.