Viral Instagram challenges keep us occupied while social distancing

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Viral challenges like the “Until Tomorrow Challenge” have been dominating our instagram feeds during the past two weeks, with COVID-19 keeping us socially distant. 
The “Until Tomorrow Challenge” asks the user to post an embarrassing photo of themself on Instagram until they delete it 24 hours later, hence the caption “Until Tomorrow”. If you have unconsciously liked one of the posts, you would receive a direct message from the person’s post you liked, now challenging you to take part in the challenge. 
So far, there are more than 2.2 million posts with the hashtag, “#untiltomorrow”. 
The “Until Tomorrow Challenge” is just one of many social media challenges and games that have been invented over the past couple of weeks of social distancing, with social media becoming a lifeline for those who miss social interaction. 
The “Draw Something Challenge” has also spread like wildfire: the challenge is to draw carrots or pumpkins on your Instagram story and tag others, challenging them to draw their own creative versions of the object. By the time a relay has gone through a good number of cycles, you can see a myriad of variations of the object—from those wearing sunglasses to others with a moustache. 
Athletes invented the “Toilet Paper Roll Challenge”, or the “10 Touch Challenge”, which consists of juggling a toilet paper roll ten times with your feet. Even legendary athletes like Leonel Messi have accepted the challenge and contributed to its ongoing spread. 
Though these challenges may look silly at glance, they offer us a way to connect with friends and family we miss, in place of the interactions that we regularly made without so much appreciation before the COVID-19 outbreak. Partaking in them is definitely not the worst way to kill our mundane hours at home and to distract ourselves from the frightening news delivered hourly.