Weekly Prompt 3

Internet challenges can be fun, entertaining, and have positive impacts as long as they are done using common sense. There have been many harmless challenges circulating the Internet over the years. The Whisper, Mannequin, and Try Not To Laugh challenges are all examples of kid friendly, safe challenges. However, there have been others like the Tide Pod or the Benadryl challenge that pose true harm to the people who do them. Most adults can easily navigate when a so-called “challenge” becomes truly dangerous. The real problem is that most of these challenges are not targeted towards adults. Children and teenagers are the ones who mostly interact with challenges. I have several cousins under the age of 10 who are constantly talking about some new challenge or trend that I haven’t even heard of. Just last weekend, my nine year old cousin told me she saw on TikTok that burning the ends of your hair off with a lighter is a good way to get rid of split ends. It’s not that children are dumb or that they don’t have common sense, its simply that they have not yet learned to safely navigate the Internet. Especially now with online school, I think kids are having a hard time knowing when they can trust their computers and when they can’t. Most challenges are harmless and entertaining. But it is important to understand that many children and teenagers can not tell the difference between a good challenge and a bad one.