We are currently receiving more and more inquiries about a new challenge, the so-called “Hot Water Challenge”. It is said to involve pouring boiling water over yourself or other people; one death is said to have already occurred.
I don't think the level of insanity of such a challenge needs to be pointed out.
Serious scalding is inevitable if you pour boiling water on yourself or – as another variant suggests – drink boiling water through a straw. In fact, this is not a fake, but a real manifestation of the “challenge hype”.
While other challenges such as the Ice Bucket Challenge had a meaningful background or were otherwise mostly harmless, here there is definitely a danger to life and limb. TIME magazine reports at least 3 cases of serious injuries, and in one case even death. So this is a real phenomenon with a real danger and real victims.
The question, however, is: What is causing the hype?
Not who came up with the original idea, but how it is carried forward.
So far we only know about a manageable number of cases. Now the topic has hit the headlines, and it would be disastrous if this were to give it impetus. We have often observed such phenomena, most recently with the Blue Whale Challenge, which started as an internet horror story, a hoax and over time became a real phenomenon through media presence. We have examined this phenomenon in more detail in this article .
There was a similar warning at the time from a Facebook group called “Becoming a father or mother is the greatest gift of my life,” which was allegedly run by pedophiles.
Until this chain letter-like warning made the rounds, such a group probably didn't even exist; inspired by the warning, groups with that name literally sprouted up. There is therefore a risk that the spread will be fueled by media reporting. We would therefore like to make the following recommendations:
To the media
Please report objectively. Clickbait with sensational headlines has no place here; there are more important things at stake here than click numbers or page visits. It's about preventing a momentum like the one in the Blue Whale Challenge.
To the parents
Find out more and talk to your children about such challenges.
Parents often don't know which sites their children are surfing or what messages they have received on WhatsApp. Openness and honesty are important here. However, there is no point in working with coercion; the children should voluntarily be open to their parents about these things; they should not perceive the control as coercion. Especially with the large number of challenges circulating, it is often difficult for younger people to correctly assess or recognize dangers. The key word is education instead of prohibition.
Author: Rüdiger
Sources
http://time.com/4893131/hot-water-challenge/
https://derstandard.at/2000062754791/Die-Hot-Water-Challenge-wird-populaer-sie-kann-toedlich-sein
http://www .heute.at/digital/multimedia/story/8-Jaehrige-stirbt-nach-schockierender-Challenge-53728553
http://praxistipps.chip.de/hot-water-challenge-was-ist-das-einfach-erklaert_95105
Notes:
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