Death from Internet Video Stupidity

When I was a child, my brother and I regularly heard about kids our age who would get into all kinds of dangerous wacky hijinks, endangering their lives in the process. We would see news reports about a child getting hurt or dying but we would never see the dangerous circumstances in which the child got hurt.

Now with the ease of video sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo and the speed and efficiency of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, it is quite swift to get videos of often lethal forms of behavior around the world and back. The problem with getting such videos accessible to anyone with an internet connection is that it leads to copycatism which in turn leads to the death of the children who are imitating what they see on their screens.

One of the worst forms of this imitation comes in the shape of children watching videos of children nearly choking themselves in the pursuit of a drug free high. The problem comes when children watching the videos attempt to get their own highs and end up dead on the ground instead. You can just imagine the horror of the parent who has put their all into raising their children well only to come home to a lifeless body, a child having gotten excited over the idea of getting high.

I see that one of the items on the dangerous games list is the so-called Cinnamon Challenge, which involves eating a spoonful of cinnamon without any water. It sounds innocuous however there have been children that have had to go on ventilator support as a result of taking this caustic challenge.

I would caution parents to keep open dialogues with your children about the kinds of videos and things they do while online. It is sometimes quite surprising how much a child is willing to disclose if their parent is just interested enough to ask the right questions. I am looking forward to the day that I can walk into my home and ask Chaim Yosef how his day went and get a multiple word answer. Until then I suppose I can just try to keep on top of online trends and see how they go!