Do We Care: Internet Challenges and their effects

The newest internet craze has everyone frozen in their tracks. The Mannequin Challenge, the internet's newest video challenge, features groups of people standing still while someone walks around recording the whole thing. Who would have thought something that simple would explode on the internet.

The challenge comes from a group of students from Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida who came up with the idea in class one day. One girl froze in front of the class and another said that she looked like a mannequin. Other students liked the idea and joined in and then someone recorded the finished result and posted it to Twitter. Next thing they knew students around the country were taking on the challenge.

The challenge really took off when sports teams and celebrities decided to join in. people like the New York Giants, Hillary Clinton, the FLOTUS with the Cleveland Cavilers, and Taylor Swift have accepted the challenge. The BYU gymnastics team also took the challenge, racking up more than 7.5 million views so far and landing a feature on ESPN.



The Mannequin Challenge is not the first internet challenge to take over the internet. There have been many other challenges that celebrities and every day people have gotten involved in, but why?

Peer pressure is a major factor that keeps these challenges trending, particularly for teenagers. Laurence Steinberg, a researcher at Temple University in Philadelphia found that "teenagers are drawn to immediate rewards of a potential choice and are less attentive to the possible risks." He also found that because teens are still learning to control their impulses, they have a harder time resisting pressure from others.

With that, many internet challenges of the past have proved to be dangerous to people's health. For instance, the Hot Pepper Challenge has sent people to the hospital and the Cinnamon Challenge can lead to choking or even vomiting, yet teens are more than willing to complete the challenge just to be accepted and respected by their peers.

Not all challenges have lead to harm. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which was started to create more widespread awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), challenged millions of people to pour a bucket of ice water on themselves or donate to the ALS Association. Millions of dollars were raised for the association and made for entertaining videos of your friends and favorite celebrities pouring freezing water on themselves.

So, do we care about internet challenges? It is clear that we as a society do because they are entertaining and because our friends and favorite public figures are "challenging" us to join in.