There is news of a teenager succumbing to the 'Blue Whale' challenge every other day and it's astounding to find this sort of negativity is available to the children, as young as five or six. In an effort to bring in a little more positivity among social media users, a Chennai-based psychologist has come up with a new challenge- the #DolphinChallenge.
Distraught over the recent reports of the 'Blue Whale' challenge suicides, David Samson, a child psychologist has come up with a new method to spread positivity among children — by asking people to do tasks that increase their confidence and self-assurance. "A psychologist invented the Blue Whale game and as a psychologist myself, it greatly affected me that something is horrid is wreaking innocent lives," Samson said.
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"It struck me that we could reverse this Blue Whale Challenge and initiate a hashtag that will encourage people to participate in a game that allows them to take up activities that would make them happy. And since a dolphin is an animal that children usually like, it was decided that it would be called the dolphin challenge," Samson explained.
The challenge is not restricted to any age group and encourages all kinds of people to participate. The challenges include watching 'happy' movies to listening to music that is 'happy', "When you make an effort to take up positive activity it invariably also lifts up your spirits too. Some of the other tasks that we would ask people to do would be to take the initiative to express themselves more to their friends and families. For example, one task would be to tell their parents that they love them. In real life, how often do we do that anyway?" the psychologist added.
Samson is taking the help of his friends and family to make the hashtag go viral, his association with the Rotary Clubs in the city is also benefiting the initiative. "I don't want this to be restricted to Chennai, I hope it reaches different parts of the country and also the world. The Rotary has an international reach as well, so we hope to spread far and wide. He wants to reach out to other organizations as well, that would help make the hashtag go viral.
The psychologist said that about 15 tasks might be assigned to a participant and at the end, the participant would be asked to include the same sort of activities in their day to day lives, so that they continue to keep the positivity. "An idle mind is a devil's workshop, so the more the brain is occupied the better it is for the individual and if these are tasks them help increase your self-esteem, confidence, and happiness, it can only have lasting benefits," he explained.
