The #KylieJennerChallenge Proves How Dangerously Impressionable Young Girls Still Are

Being a teenage girl is hard.

Your body starts to mature, propelling you into a womanhood that you aren't entirely sure you're ready or equipped for.

Hormones begin to flood your system, causing you to develop crushes and obsessions you don't always know how to control.

And to make matters even worse, everyone is watching and commenting on the whole process, not least those of the opposite sex.

It is at this point - when you're trying to figure yourself out, fixated on being "normal", but not certain what that means - that peer pressure is at its most powerful.

Which is where the #KylieJennerChallenge comes in.

What Is It?

Well, as you might have guessed, it has to do with reality television star Kylie Jenner's much talked about lips.

Young girls are placing their lips in the openings of jam jars and sucking hard enough to cause their lips to swell and, in some cases, hard enough to produce purple bruising around the mouth.

While the bruising and swelling is at its fiercest, they're snapping the damage and captioning it #KylieJennerChallenge, as an invitation for others to follow suit.

What Does This Mean?

This isn't the first cultural meme of its kind to spread rapidly between teenagers.

It isn't even the most dangerous.

The swelling and bruising will likely go down after a bit - which is more than can be said for those who've self-harmed as part of the #CutForZayn trend and a lot more than can be said for those who ended up in hospital or even died after either the cinnamon challenge or the even more prolific "Neknominations."

It does point to something we've known for a long time - that teenagers are as fragile and impressionable as ever and that social media is an interesting catalyst for their behaviour during this transitional period.

The Body Beautiful

There's no doubt that social media can be used as a force for good.

Some of these challenges, such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, have been fantastic at prompting people to join worthy causes.

Others, such as the #NoMakeupSelfie have helped to counteract the pressures placed on women to look perennially "photoshopped."

But add in a couple of extra factors - youth and insecurity, mainly - and you've equipped a whole generation to take simple bullying tactics and turn them into a nationwide self-harming pandemic.

What Can We Do?

Far be it from us to start remonstrating about social media as some sort of enemy, fist shaking as we post this article on our Yahoo twitter and Facebook accounts.

We know, perhaps more than most, how useful social media has become as a tool for conversation, information and light relief.

The root of the problem remains the same as it ever was - that teenagers, particularly young girls, but boys too, are still as delicate as ever.

And that finding ways to open lines of communication between them and older, trustworthy influences are just as, if not more important than they ever have been.

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What do you think? Let us know in the comments!