Dangerous social media challenge ignites safety concerns in some Canadian classrooms

TikTok's dangerous 'Chromebook challenge' has resulted in the fire department being called in at one Edmonton school. Kathy Le has more.

A new and potentially dangerous social media challenge called “Chromebook challenge”, causing chaos in many schools across the United States, has made its way into some schools in Canada.

Students are reportedly sticking various objects like paper clips, staples and mechanical pencils into the charging ports, under the keyboard keys or near the lithium-ion batteries of a school-assigned laptop with the goal of short-circuiting the device, causing it to smoulder or catch fire and ultimately disrupt school classes.

“It’s actually quite disappointing that people are doing this,” said Carol Henke, public information officer with the Calgary Fire Department.

“This is so incredibly dangerous. It’s not just destroying property, it’s putting people at risk.”

Students will record their laptops and share the footage on social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

Media strategist Adam Rodricks says when some people use social media, especially young people, their goal is to get “attention and validation”. He says some may also fall into the peer pressure trap and engage in these risky trends.

“If you have a reputation as the class clown, you know, this is the next iteration of the prank that you should be playing. That’s what they’re being told. So it brings about a sense of social belonging, at least online,” said Rodricks.

While there have been no reported Chromebook challenge events within the Calgary Board of Education, the Calgary Catholic School District has confirmed one at a high school.

The Edmonton Public School board has confirmed four incidents, and in a statement, the Edmonton Catholic School District says, “There have been isolated incidents in some of our schools”.

In one of the cases, Edmonton Fire Rescue Services was called in. In an email to CTV News, it says investigators believe the event “may be tied to this (Chromebook challenge) social media trend.”

Henke stresses the potential dangers of lithium-ion batteries if they are damaged, not used correctly or disposed of incorrectly.

“If they go into thermal runaway, they can explode,” said Henke.

“They create incredibly toxic smoke. It’s really, really dangerous.”

The “Chromebook Challenge” has been a problem across the United States, with some school districts seeing dozens of incidents. In one case, a teen was taken to the hospital for injuries and in other cases, there have been charges of mischief.

While the videos of the “Chromebook Challenge” are shared on various social media platforms, TikTok says it’s removing content that violates its Dangerous Activities and Challenges policy. It’s also limiting people’s ability to search for this content by redirecting related search terms and hashtags to its Community Guidelines page.

“There’s no telling where exactly this will end, but I do think there are some pretty swift and severe measures being taken by schools to stop this trend immediately in its tracks,” said Rodricks.

Some school districts in Alberta confirm to CTV Newsthat they are continuously reminding students about the serious safety concerns if the school’s technology is misused.