Lifestyle

The Most Dangerous TikTok Challenges

Published

6 years ago

May 5, 2020

TikTok has been a popular video-sharing application. Based on the lines of the app Vines by Snapchat, TikTok has captured millions of global audiences. Especially after Snapchat suspended the services of Vine, TikTok was a hot favorite among the young fans of this app. It has been the second- most downloaded app in the year 2019 only after Whatsapp. The popularity of TikTok among youngsters has been so much that over 40% of TikTok users consist of teenagers and young adults. In such a situation, some dangerous trends have alarmed adults and authorities.

Why the need for dangerous trends?

TikTok is all about getting more views for the videos one uploads. In the quest of getting more people to view and follow their videos, many people start posting very dangerous content that has a potential risk to their lives and can cause personal injury. In many cases, these become popular trends and soon more youngsters are replicating this act for heroism and keeping up with the trend.

This herd mentality or struggle to be a part of the group has affected the young community often. Lives have been lost and serious injuries have been caused while trying to pull off these following TikTok challenges. If you are an adult, you must ensure supervision so that the young ones are not getting themselves into such dangerous acts for the mere purpose of getting more views.

Some harmful TikTok Challenges:

Skullbreaker Challenge: The name of the challenge is enough to understand the painstaking consequences of this challenge. It involves three individuals standing side by side. Once the person in the middle jumps, the other two kick his legs out resulting in an uncontrolled fall. This has resulted in multiple cases of skull injuries besides injuries to other parts of the body. Even deaths have been caused by this challenge being performed by youngsters. All these videos of the Skullbreaker Challenge have been taken off by TikTok.
Throw It in the Air Challenge: What do you think about a challenge the goal of which is to cause a concussion? As dangerous as it sounds, Throw It in the Air Challenge has attracted a lot of serious injuries. To perform this challenge, a group of people stand in a circle and throw an object high in the air. They do not shift until one of them is hit by the falling object. This object can be a small ball and can also be a heavy object having the potential to cause a serious head or neck injury.
The Cha-Cha Slide Challenge: This was a challenge involving driving cars to particular music and resulted in numerous accidents. Finally, TikTok pulled down all the videos of the same and it was regarded as a dangerous TikTok challenge which could potentially be life-threatening.
The Cereal Challenge: For the Cereal Challenge, someone’s mouth is used as a bowl for cereal as he lies down. Cereal and milk are poured into his mouth and consumed with a spoon by another. Besides being gross, the challenge had the potential to choke an individual, and in many cases that happened.
The Pass Out Challenge: The objective of this TikTok Challenge is to somehow manage to pass out through some actions. For instance, one could pass out after swaying their head to and fro multiple times or by holding their breath. As can be understood, this had the risk of serious threats to young lives and was pulled down by TikTok.

Not All TikTok Challenges are Bad:

There are many TikTok Challenges which are great fun and can be a cause for great entertainment. The Renegade Challenge, Yeehaw Challenge, Flip the Switch Challenge, and many such other challenges have no safety concerns and can be safely performed. The Renegade Challenge, for instance, is a dancing challenge where the user has to perform the particular dance steps.

It should be the priority of concerned authorities that instead of dangerous and life-threatening challenges, users are into these fun and harmless challenges. The key thus lies in controlling the trend rather than stopping it altogether.

Conclusion:

These challenges and many others have prompted authorities to ban TikTok in many places temporarily. Despite having a young audience base, TikTok has also been accused of letting vulgar content slip through the scrutiny. The solution is, however, not in stopping TikTok altogether. It is already too big to go down and thus there are supposed to be safety nets to ensure that the young users are kept safe. Dangerous trends can be pulled down before they go viral and a healthy vigilance from the adults can ensure that such unfortunate incidents do not endanger the lives of the youth.

Lifestyle

How Critical-Thinking Skills Will Enable Your Kids to Battle Misinformation

Published

5 hours ago

May 20, 2026

Michelle Langton

Photo: Tuttle Twins

Michael Currier of Massachusetts is an unvaccinated gastroenterologist and entrepreneur, and he’s seen misinformation firsthand. He’s long been teaching his kids how to spot misinformation, but they were naturally skeptical when they didn’t hear it from anyone but him. However, the right books taught his kids how to combat misinformation, and they will teach your kids too! If you’re wondering how to raise independent thinkers who can spot misinformation, the Tuttle Twins books are essential tools for your toolbelt.

How Critical Thinking Combats Misinformation

When kids can think critically, they become able to evaluate the credibility of sources and look for evidence, also identifying their own and others’ biases. Critical thinkers don’t just passively absorb information; they take it apart piece by piece to see what makes it “tick.”

Critical thinkers question the credentials of an author or source, alongside their motivations and whether they provide supporting evidence that goes beyond just statements that require trust. Kids who can think critically also spot confirmation bias, which is the tendency to believe something that fits in well with the thinker’s current belief system or worldview. This reduces demand for fake news that simply elicits an emotional reaction.

When your kids can think critically and independently, they will also be able to spot logical fallacies, like drawing causal conclusions from data that’s simply correlational. Critical thinkers can also tell the difference between scientific evidence and someone’s opinion.

Independent, critical thinkers don’t just read a page. They look up information from other trusted sources to verify that the original source is accurate. Critical thinking also encourages a healthy skepticism that causes independent thinkers to pause and assess emotionally charged content before they spread it around, realizing that misinformation frequently exploits outrage or fear.

Critical thinkers can also recognize propaganda tactics such as loaded language, false dilemmas, and “alternative facts.”

Photo: Tuttle Twins

Seeking Out Books that Teach Critical Thinking

At this point, parents wondering how to raise independent thinkers will want to look for books that teach critical thinking, like the Tuttle Twins series. The Tuttle Twins books explain things like misinformation, freedom of speech, and even the World Economic Forum while explaining that certain people get to decide what is and isn’t misinformation.

Books that teach critical thinking don’t just present facts. They encourage kids to analyze, evaluate, and put together arguments, frequently shining a light on logical fallacies and biases while calling for active application instead of a passive taking-in of information. Books that teach critical thinking will help you with how to raise independent thinkers by guiding you and your child through reasoned questioning and requiring evidence behind facts.

The Tuttle Twins series wraps every lesson in an engaging story that doesn’t just teach the information presented. The Tuttle Twins books also encourage all the above elements found in books that teach critical thinking. You can even enhance the critical-thinking skills embedded in all the Tuttle Twins books by pausing throughout the story and asking open-ended questions such as: What do you think the character should do next? What were some alternate solutions to the problem? What do you think could have been the consequences of those solutions?

Books that teach critical thinking like the Tuttle Twins series will go a long way toward helping you learn how to raise independent thinkers. They will also help you create special moments with your kids that they’ll remember forever! Join the growing number of parents who don’t want their kids to just be passive absorbers of information.