The world continues to encounter internet challenges of all sorts: the occasionally sensible, the silly, the ridiculous, to the downright dangerous. And now we have the salt challenge on TikTok – yet another reason for parents to be worried and the world to doubt the sum of human sanity in the world. The #SaltChallenge has been around for a while and has sparked interest anew.
It was sometime last year that a TikTok handle called @okayimjonathan did a video of himself pouring salt out of a package directly into his mouth. Many copied him, some posted videos of themselves doing it.
As expected there is nothing to be done with a mouthful of salt except to spit it out. The video ends with the words “do not recommend,” but probably not before it gave a bunch of impressionable kids the idea to try it out themselves. Natural childish curiosity is bound to make others try out something like this.
Doctors have warned against doing this. Eating a lot of salt can cause all sorts of problems from dehydration to nausea, to seizures. In extreme cases salt can induce coma and can also cause swelling of the brain; even causing death.
Some years ago, we saw the salt and ice challenge, in which people placed salt on their skin followed by ice. this would cause a terrible burning sensation and the challenge was to leave this on the skin for as long as possible. The numbing sensation of the ice would mean that those attempting the challenge would sometimes be unaware of the damage being caused. This led to severe lesions and burns on the skin.
This was another idiotic TikTok challenge that required a coin to be inserted between an electric socket and phone charge to trigger sparks. This could potentially cause not just sparks but terrible shocks and fires as well. Firefighters had to rush to a school in the US where some kids had tried the challenge.
Cinnamon is that sweetish spice isn't it? It’s the stuff we top up a mug of frothy coffee with to make it more aromatic. How difficult could it be to swallow a spoonful? Too many people thought it would be easy. There were a few who said it wasn’t that bad; most were quite amazed at how very awful and difficult it was. So if you see a challenge, run the other way – either its stupid or dangerous or both.
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