The educational authorities sent an official letter to schools at all levels to ask for stronger student guidance.
According to the online edition of the Asahi Shimbun and NHK Broadcasting, a male student in the second year of middle school was carried to the Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Comprehensive Medical Center on the 4th of last month.
The student was diagnosed with a two-month total injury due to a fracture of both wrists and a broken front tooth. Medical staff checked the injured student’s smartphone and confirmed that the student was injured while following the “Superman Challenge,” which is popular on TikTok and other video platforms.
Challenge refers to copying popular behaviors on video platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and authenticating them as videos.
The Superman Challenge is a challenge in which people reach out and hold each other in two lines, and a challenger jumps on this arm and lands like a superman flying.
A woman living in Aomori Prefecture also complained that her son, who is a senior in high school, had injured the back of his head when he fell down while doing the Superman Challenge with six of his friends in the hallway of the school. The son was not seriously injured, but his back neck was not in good condition until the next morning. Another friend who threw herself with him said to have sprained her arm.
According to education authorities in Nanjo City, Okinawa Prefecture, four to five middle school students in the city failed to settle on their friends’ arms properly and bounced off and fell to the floor, fracturing their arms.
In Hyogo Prefecture, a male student fell from a height of 2 meters and suffered a skull fracture. In Urasoe City, Okinawa Prefecture, several children were injured while playing the game. Against this backdrop, news of the injury was reported one after another on social media in December, when the Superman Challenge became popular in Japan.
On X, there were a number of posts about injuries to people around them, including “My son hit his head and took a CT scan” and “My son broke his arm.”
In response, educational authorities in each region of Japan sent an official letter to elementary, middle, and high schools in the jurisdiction last month to caution them.
Not only in Japan, but also in other countries, children and teenagers are getting hurt while doing the Superman Challenge.
Similar cases have been reported in Israel, France, Greece, and Romania. Currently, TikTok does not have a video when searching for the Superman Challenge, but instead posts a message that says, “It may be related to words or content that violate community guidelines.”
According to NHK, TikTok’s Japanese subsidiary “does not allow content that promotes or recommends dangerous challenges,” explaining that similar measures are taken not only in Japan but also around the world.
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
