Health experts are warning people to not follow the viral Tide pod challenge, which has caused 10 deaths so far.
Social media is swamped with teenagers attempting to chew Tide pods for fun. Tide pods are tiny soap-filled detergent capsules meant to do laundry, but teenagers are not understanding the main purpose of this product and are involved in trying to eat it as a joke.
Well, this joke is certainly not funny, because it has caused around 10 deaths so far due to the ingestion of detergent. Among these, 2 were toddlers and 8 were elderly individuals with dementia. We do not know the exact number of deaths, but it could be more than 10.
Ann Marie Buerkle, a representative of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said “This is what started out as a joke on the Internet and now it’s just gone too far.” Many videos started surfacing on social media sites, where teenagers were biting into these tiny capsules. The situation got so serious that the department of Consumer Product Safety even tweeted “Please don’t eat laundry pods.”
These pods include substances like ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, and polymers, which can cause serious damage to the lungs, kidneys, and eyesight. Manufacturers were concerned about toddlers mistakenly ingesting these pods, but the threat of adults voluntarily eating them never occurred to them.
More about the deaths caused by the Tide pod challenge
Partaking in this challenge is evidence of the deadly consequences of social media, where teenagers and young adults are willing to do absolutely anything to go viral and make their presence on social media handles.
Marc Pagan, a nineteen- year old who participated in this dare, said that he was aware of how stupid the dare is but still did it. He said, “A lot of people were just saying how stupid I was or how – why would I be willing to do that. No one should be putting anything like that in their mouths, you know?”
This incident raises a larger question about the impact of social media on teenagers, where they are not thinking straight when it comes to participating in viral challenges. This is an urgent problem, which needs to be solved.
