Stay away from momo

Chennai: Online games and task giving challenges are not only addictive, but some like the Blue Whale Challenge and Tide pod challenge can be life-threatening also. The idea of such trends attracts youngsters due to anxiety and helps them to seek the attention of their peers.

While a few of these so-called challenges are voluntary, they are mostly driven by peer-pressure or vulnerability.

Psychologists say that discussions on such games and challenges and their promotion on social media platforms need to be discouraged, due to the attention seeking behavioural pattern of youngsters, making them more vulnerable.

The recent Momo challenge, which is said to be a WhatsApp based game,  has become the recent concern as players get threat calls and messages on their numbers and it is children who are mostly the victims. The Kiki Challenge that not only caused drama on city roads across the world, but also led to many accidents, was mainly promoted by celebrities and provoked youngsters to join the row.  

“It’s highly disheartening to see celebrities who are looked up to by vulnerable adolescents, encourage such acts which have detrimental effects on budding minds. Youngsters indulge in risk taking behaviour without much consequential thinking due to a lot of hormonal, psychological changes provoked by other factors. They also give in to peer pressure quite easily so as to get peer group acceptance. So they undertake these challenges which might get gratification among the same age group and also releases dopamine in the brain,” says Dr Vivian Kapil, consultant psychiatrist, SIMS Hospital.

Psychologists say that such attention seeking behaviour can be life-threatening and emphasize on the need of parents and teachers to educate adolescents that they needn’t take up challenges or tasks which are scary or which can make them uncomfortable. Eventually it becomes a pattern wherein they start craving for attention and the pleasure associated with it and get dependent on it. 

“The age-group of 11-18 is most vulnerable as their decision-making ability and reasoning skills are just building up. Various factors such as low self esteem, poor social/ family support, traits like high risk taking, low consequential thinking, peer group influences also add to vulnerability. In such situations, these games give them a reward of ‘points’, ‘votes’, ‘tags’ and others for just following their instructions. It is essential for parents to spend quality time with their adolescents so as to give them an environment to share with them their fears, concerns and emotions,” says Dr Sai Suchitra, behavioural medicine consultant, Apollo Hospital.

People with low self esteem and insecurity desperately need external approval so as to make them feel a little better. Such games make these youngsters venture into such tasks as part of thrill seeking behaviour and once they start feeling good about it, they become dependent on it.

Officials at the government children helplines 104 and 14417 say that though they have not received distress calls regarding these games, it is the need of the hour that parents ensure gadget hygiene like supervising their online behavior, educate them about cyber safety, limit screen exposure and restrict gadget use at nights to keep them psychologically healthy. Any deviant, defiant behaviours exhibited by adolescents should be addressed, explored and if need be, professional help sought as to manage undesirable behaviour,” said a senior official.

The Kiki challenge
The Kiki challenge is a dance challenge which has become viral worldwide. It is based on Canadian singer Drake’s latest song ‘In my feelings’ 
In this viral, dangerous trend, participants make a video of them climbing out of a moving car, leaving the door open and dancing to the song as their vehicles slowly cruises down the street. Participants have to step out of the moving car, perform the dance and then get back into the car while it is moving, without any injuries Law enforcement agencies from various states in India have come out and issued warnings and asked their citizen to refrain from doing the kiki challenge.