With the rise of social media, people for a few years have been sharing ideas and challenges that can become viral. Most of these challenges are harmless, there are also many different challenges and trends teens are participating in that can be very dangerous for their health, and sometimes cause fatalities.

Dripping –

“Dripping” is a potentially dangerous vaping method. It is done by dropping e-cigarette juice directly onto the hot coils, making the juice produce thicker clouds and more flavor.

The reason “dripping” is a more dangerous method of vaping is because it slowly releases the liquid into a hot atomizer that may expose teens to higher nicotine levels and other harmful non-nicotine toxins, including acetaldehyde. No one yet knows the long term effects of vaping on teens, but if it’s true about these toxins, keep away.

Tide Pod Challenge –

The Tide Pod challenge started off as a joke, but quickly went viral in 2017. Teens began to post videos and memes of them pretending to eat these laundry detergent pods. Some people aren’t pretending and actually chew these up which is obviously very unsafe.

They’ve been a concern since their release in 2012 because young children and adults with dementia were mistaking the packets with something edible. Tide even let out an announcement saying they are for cleaning laundry, not playing with. They can cause chemical burns, comas, seizures, and respiratory arrest.

Condom Challenge –

Teens have been doing this challenge for quite a few years now. “The condom challenge” is where someone unrolls a condom, they stuff it up their nose, plug the opposite nostril and inhale until the latex gets to your throat. Then you grab it from your throat and pull it through.

An associate professor at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health wrote that the only thing people should snort is air or the occasional nasal spray/doctor prescribed prescriptions. “The condom could easily get stuck in your nose or your throat, blocking your breathing or causing you to choke,” he wrote.

Salt and Ice Challenge –

When you combine ice and salt it causes a chemical reaction similar to frostbite, making the temperature of the ice reduce to 1.4 degrees fahrenheit (-17 degrees celsius).

The challenge involves pouring salt onto your arm and then laying a piece or multiple pieces of ice on top of the salt causing it to burn the area. The point of the challenge is to withstand the pain for as long as possible.

A spokesman from the NSPCC said: ‘The rise of social media has contributed to increasing peer pressure amongst children and this ‘craze’ is another example of the risks.’ This challenge is causing some teenagers to be hospitalized with 3rd degree burns.