Teenagers Set School Laptops Ablaze in Alarming Social Media Trend

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): In the race to get likes and views in the internet world, people are accepting new and deadly challenges every day. One such very dangerous trend is becoming increasingly viral on social media these days, which has been named '#ChromebookChallenge'. In the name of this challenge, children are setting their own laptops on fire, which is not only damaging valuable devices, but also posing a serious threat to health and safety due to the spread of toxic smoke.

In this new challenge, children perform a special stunt. They simply put some paper, pencil lead or foil paper in the charging port of their laptop. This causes an electrical short circuit in the laptop, especially its charger. Many videos of this are going viral on social media, which show that such an act immediately causes the laptop or charger to catch fire and highly toxic smoke starts coming out of it.

According to media reports, due to such a challenge, the entire classroom of Newington High School in Connecticut, USA was filled with smoke. According to the New York Post, the city's fire marshal DJ Zordon said that due to this trend, people are facing a lot of problems because the laptop battery is such that it catches fire immediately. Once it burns, poisonous smoke starts coming out and in many such cases the fire brigade has to be called. Many cases related to this challenge have been seen in various areas of America like California, Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington.

Social media platforms like TikTok say that they are taking steps to remove such dangerous content. According to TikTok, between October and December last year, 99.7 percent of dangerous content was marked and removed. However, despite this, people still complain that such content should not be made viral on social media, because youth are getting greatly affected by it and they may face serious harm. Experts are advising to keep children and youth away from such dangerous online challenges and make them aware of them.