Social media challenges among adolescents – unconscious danger or peer pressure? Dangerous consequences of modern adolescents’ games

Abstract

Computers, tablets and smartphones enable young people to quickly communicate, share data and obtain information. The progressive technological and information development, in addition to its many positive functions, also promotes certain risks. Young people online are exposed to harmful content and behaviour that has negative consequences for their health and life. Adolescence is a time of particular vulnerability to sensation-seeking, succumbing to peer pressure and engaging in risky behaviour. During this time, adolescents’ social and personal value is dependent on the social relationships they establish and their popularity on social media. Undoubtedly, the Internet and social media are an important space in which adolescents spend their free time, but also an area where they can experience potential danger. Internet challenges have become a particularly popular form of entertainment among young people in recent years. Dangerous forms of activity undertaken by adolescents under the influence of a peer group or, very often, short videos posted on popular Internet portals are not the result of difficult and traumatic experiences or affective disorders, but a phenomenon considered quite normal among adolescents. This approach to the issue makes it all the more alarming, as it affects the entire population of young people and promotes various forms of self-harm. The online space can become a place for sharing techniques or practices of self-harm. Research indicates that images rather than textual information are an important source of self-harm actions. Early episodes of self-harm become a strong predictor of interpersonal and psychiatric problems, suicide attempts and suicide itself. Low public awareness of the dangers of the so-called viral challenges among youth makes it difficult to intervene early and prevent the spread of self-destructive tendencies. The aim of this article is to present popular challenges undertaken by young people under the influence of peer group pressure and social media in order to show their contribution to the development of self-harm. The consequences of these behaviours, as well as possible preventive measures to reduce this dangerous trend will be presented.