TikTok's latest dangerous trend is sticking paperclips in school Chromebooks or power outlets

TikTok trends can be idiotic, or downright dangerous, at times - as you may have noticed - and here's one that definitely falls into the latter category: jamming a paperclip into a port on your Chromebook.

The 'Chromebook Challenge' has become a trend after some influencers on the social media site promoted the idea, and according to Axios (as flagged up by Wccftech), it has caught on with some students in the US.

Basically, it's kids messing with the Chromebook given to them by the school, inserting random objects into the ports, mostly bits of metal like a paperclip, pushpin or piece of foil.

If you don't know what that does, it can cause a short circuit, which could lead to electrical damage, and the Chromebook could end up smoking, or even catching fire (the battery that is). And, of course, that's the idea, to see the device smoke, and cause chaos in the classroom potentially.

Which indeed has been happening, with smoke causing fire alarms to go off as you might imagine.

As the above Reddit post on the topic points out to teachers: don't give your students paperclips if they ask for them, because this is likely to be what they're doing. Either messing with their Chromebook - or rather, the school's laptop - or even sticking that clip or other object into a power outlet in the classroom.

Risky trends are hardly a new thing on TikTok, which has been home to a whole host of challenges that range from the unwise to the ridiculous, like the milk crate or blackout challenges.

Some students appear to have a complete lack of respect for school electronics, and damaging Chromebooks has seemingly long been a trend. Except in the past, this consisted of simply smashing up the devices, but this latest craze is obviously a fire risk (or an electrocution risk if you're talking about power outlets, of course).