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Middle schooler hospitalized after popular TikTok trend; will face criminal charges (local12.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/usa@midwest.social

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PLAINVILLE, Conn. (CNN Newsource/WFSB/WKRC) - A middle school student was hospitalized and will face charges after carrying out a popular social media trend.

Plainville Middle School has officially been added to the list of schools who have had students take part in a dangerous TikTok trend that involves Chromebooks. The trend involves students putting items in the laptop's USB port to cause a fire. Several videos of this trend have gone viral online.

According to police, the student who did this trend caused the laptop to short-circuit after sticking scissors in the USB port. The student was subsequently hospitalized due to smoke inhalation.

"To put a metal object in a USB port is absolutely dangerous. [It's] like the Tide Pod challenge they had years ago, and they were eating them, and I'm like, 'What are kids doing nowadays?'" said parent Natasha French.

The popularity of the trend has led schools across the country to crack down on the trend.

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[–] kobra@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I definitely saw people take foil gum wrappers and put them in electrical outlets to short them. It only happened a handful of times throughout my childhood but even without social media, it still happened.

I assume shorting a lithium ion battery is quite a bit more dangerous though.

I wonder if demonstration/education is part of the solution? Like, every kid should know what it looks like, what usually happens vs. what could happen. Take away all they mystery and curiosity?You’ll still have general vandals but I would hope that number is very small.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah the real issue is it would never be such a wide trend without kids seeing it, but also it shows kids just have no sense of value in not making asses of themselves on a scale that is a lot wider than before.

In my day you would have been mortified to be the idiot who blew up a computer and everybody knew. Now they want people to watch them blow up computers for likes