Hot New Trend: High School Students Won't Stop Lighting Their Google Chromebook's in Fire in The Middle of Class

NBC – A new social media challenge has students causing their school-issued Chromebooks to start smoking and even catch fire, causing schools to evacuate in some cases.

To take part in the challenge, students jam objects like pencils and paper clips into the USB port.

Inserting objects into the USB port can cause the computer to short circuit or catch fire, fire officials said. That fire produces toxic smoke.

Officials also warn of the volatility of lithium batteries, which could explode and injure other people around.

Prince George's County Public Schools confirmed it has had up to 10 incidents reported.

“In addition to posing serious safety hazards, these actions can lead to costly repairs and disciplinary consequences,” PGCPS said in a statement. “We have seen a few incidents related to the Chromebook challenge in our district. We are actively monitoring this trend and have informed our community about the risks."

Loudoun County Public Schools reported a significant increase in the number of student-issued devices needing repairs — a sign that some students could be accepting the challenge.

When reading the discourse surrounding this "our students won't stop lighting Chromebook's on fire" epidemic, I see a lot of blame being put on the students for being inconsiderate, non-property respecting shitheads. I see a lot of blame being put on the Chinese for inventing an app in which setting Chromebook's ablaze is rewarded. But I don't see nearly enough people blaming Google (or whoever is responsible for manufacturing the Google Chromebook's) for putting a product into circulation that will burst into flames when stuck with a tiny little piece of pencil lead. 

I'm not saying the students aren't shit heads deserving of blame. But students being shitheads isn't a new thing. Of course dumb high school students are going to do destructive things. This isn't a Gen Z problem. Gen Z is simply using the tools at their disposal in the era they're attending high school to carry out their destructive activities. They aren't behaving any differently than high school kids in the 1970's would have. I've seen Dazed & Confused. Mitch Kramer threw a bowling ball trough a stranger's car window. Matthew McConaughey was a pedophile. The youth have always been rascals. They're just playing within the parameters of their time. If a high school is going to issue their students a school supply that effectively comes with a big red button on the side that you can press to make it explode, inevitably the occasional student who shows up unprepared for a geometry test is going to press that button at the start of class to buy themselves some extra time to study delay the inevitable.

Or if pressing the "light on fire" button nets the student few thousand followers on a social media app that they believe they could be their ticket to financial freedom someday (because clearly the traditional schooling route isn't working out for them), then of course they're going to light their Chromebook's on fire.

I'm only taking this angle because I haven't seen a single person ask why it's so easy to light a laptop on fire. Our society's smartest computer people have been working tirelessly on developing technology that's one command away from of putting an end to the entire human race. But apparently nobody has bothered to design a Chromebook that doesn't catch fire if a student sticks some lead into the USB drive. It can't be that difficult. Kid's are always going to be destructive shitheads. If the Chromebook people want schools to keep issuing every student in the district their own personal Chromebook, then they have to meet the student's destructive brains halfway and give them something a little bit less explosion prone.