A deadly number: how teenagers risk their lives because of dangerous challenges
In the Moscow region, a teenager almost burned to death while filming a video for social networks. The young man's mother blamed social media groups where children were encouraged to engage in risky behavior. Izvestia found out how to understand that a child has entered such communities, and how to protect him from dangerous influences.
Tragic shooting
In the Moscow region, a teenager almost burned to death while filming a video for social networks. His mother believes that he was influenced by messenger channels.
According to the woman, her 17-year-old son went with friends to shoot a video. But in the evening, the ambulance staff called her and informed her that the teenager was being taken to the hospital with burns to 100% of his body.
"When my son was conscious, he told the doctor that they were in the forest in Odintsovo district, where they were roasting kebabs, and he got burned. But his burns are so severe that his condition is critical," RIA Novosti quoted her as saying.
According to her, the child's eyes and lungs are damaged, while he has almost no healthy skin left for transplantation. Doctors have already performed several operations, but the young man began to have serious complications.
The woman added that after the incident, she found out that her son had subscribed to certain groups on the Telegram messenger, where the children were convinced of their uselessness and put pressure on them. She believes that her son's injuries could be related to the performance of certain tasks.
Law enforcement agencies are currently investigating the circumstances of the incident. Izvestia sent a request to the Investigative Committee of Russia.
When dangerous groups and challenges appeared
Over the past few years, groups that harm teenagers have often been found online: they can give dangerous tasks, including committing self-harm or suicide. This was accompanied, for example, by the game "Blue Whale": the creator of the public was sentenced to nine years in prison.
In the spring of 2025, another dangerous trend appeared in messengers - "Disappear for a day." Its essence was to force the child to leave the house and not get in touch during the day. After that, he can come back and report that he "won". For this, some curators promise prizes — video games or accessories for gadgets.
As Alexey Korobchenko, head of the information security department at the Security Code company, explains, destructive groups appeared almost simultaneously with social networks and messengers, starting around 2008. Platforms have simplified the exchange of content, which has facilitated the spread of games, many of which have provoked risky actions for the sake of virtual popularity and likes.
–– Recently, we have seen an increase in the popularity of such challenges, vivid examples are "hooking", taking risky selfies, for example, on the roofs of buildings. A separate threat is posed by activities related to the use of medicines and inedible substances that can cause severe poisoning," Korobchenko notes.
For example, Andrey Sidenko, head of online child safety at Kaspersky Lab, adds that videos were popular online where the blogger ate washing powder and encouraged his subscribers to do so. In another video, he was drinking a bottle of sunflower oil. All these were staged shots, shot for the sake of likes, but the children, due to their inexperience, could repeat them and suffer.
How children are lured into challenges
As Andrey Sidenko explains to Izvestia, children can be involved in dangerous groups and challenges in various ways. For example, write to them on social networks or computer games. Intruders ingratiate themselves into the confidence of teenagers and imperceptibly begin to manipulate their actions - for example, to convince them to do something.
Children themselves participate in trends, including dangerous ones, for several reasons. The first is their popularity: according to Kaspersky Safe Kids' anonymized statistics, a third of schoolchildren watch bloggers who post challenges and encourage them to repeat them. Another 12% of children eventually accept such challenges and really try to repeat them.
- The second reason, which is also the key one, is peer pressure. The fear of being an outcast or the desire to prove their courage makes teenagers ignore the risks. Challenges are becoming a way to confirm your status in the group," adds Alexey Korobchenko.
The authors of the challenges perfectly understand the psychology of adolescents, says Olga Bochkova, founder and head of the Academy of Safety, child and adolescent psychotherapist. Children strive for belonging and at the same time for expression, which is why risky flash mobs are rapidly gaining popularity.
–"Challenges involving self–harm, suffocation, jumping out of windows, and the use of dangerous substances exploit a teenager's vulnerability and his desire to prove his coolness to himself and others," notes Bochkova.
How to understand that a child is participating in challenges and protect him
According to Olga Bochkova, it is possible to understand that a teenager is interested in dangerous groups or challenges based on several signs. They are associated with behavioral changes.:
the child spends a lot of time on the phone, hiding correspondence and applications;
becomes withdrawn, anxious, avoids conversations;
he changes his sleep schedule, refuses to meet with friends, does not want to go to school;
He starts having strange conversations, using words and terms you don't understand.;
disturbing posts, links to questionable communities, or aggression appear on social networks.
–– All this may indicate not only challenges, but also other difficulties, and such signals cannot be ignored. It is important to understand what is happening with a teenager, but for this, a trusting relationship must be built in the family," the child psychotherapist notes.
To create such a relationship, she advises strengthening a child's sense of self-worth and confidence, teaching them to recognize and stop pressure, to be interested in their inner world and what is happening in their lives, to explain their rights and responsibilities, and the consequences of risky behavior.
–– Give me an alternative: instead of an endless phone, offer hobbies and joint activities, show by personal example healthy ways to relax. If a child feels accepted and respected in the family, he will have fewer reasons to seek support and recognition in dubious online communities, concludes Olga Bochkova.
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