Students are in short-circuit their chromebooks for a challenge on social networks

Around the country, students short-circuit their laptops in school in a new and sometimes dangerous tendency of social media.

The “Chromebook Challenge” implies that students block objects in their laptops until they stimulate and do. The students then record laptops smoking and share the images on Tiktok and Instagram, sometimes set to music, while viewers react with the heart and the boost emojis.

It is not only expensive computers that are damaged: floors and offices are burned. The lessons are interrupted. Class halls are evacuated. Fire and police services are summoned. And some students have been suspended or even faced with criminal charges because schools work to stop the trend.

Here’s what you need to know.

How does it work?

The “Chromebook Challenge” implies the use of objects such as push pins, staples, trombones, metal gum packaging and graphite, found in lead in pencil. They are inserted in the USB or load ports, under the keyboard keys or near the batteries to deliberately circuit the devices.

Sometimes the batteries are broken to facilitate the reaction. Primary students at high school were reported.

“Unfortunately, we have seen cases of this dangerous behavior occurring in the schools of our district,” said Michael J. Testani, the Superintendent of Fairfield schools, in Connecticut, in a letter to families.