You may have been scrolling through Instagram recently and come across a video of a friend pouring ice water on their head. For those of us who were on social media around 2014, this challenge is nothing new and just a reinvention.

According to the BBC, the ice bucket challenge started in 2014 as a way to spread awareness about ALS, a form of Motor Neurone Disease.

It came back in March 2025 after being launched on Instagram by the Mental Illness Needs Discussion (MIND) club at the University of South Carolina (USC). According to NBC News, USC junior Wade Jefferson started MIND after two of his friends died by suicide.

While participating in the challenge is a good effort, many are asking if social media challenges really help spread awareness at all.

According to Parents, most teenagers, especially younger ones, have no idea why they are actually participating in the challenge. To many kids, it is just something fun that their friends nominated them to do.

Also, social media challenges limit the movement to those who have access to these platforms. Someone who doesn’t have Instagram cannot spread awareness the same way.

Pew Research Center states that most Americans believe that social media can help build movements, but that it is easier to lose sight of what the goal actually is.

In regard to this specific challenge, there is also controversy surrounding its rebranding from the ALS cause to the mental health cause.

In an interview with Today, Brooke Eby, a TikTok personality with ALS, said, “I think to do the exact same style of fundraiser without any mention of ALS, where people like me who are actively dying from this disease with no hope, the concern is that by rebranding the Ice Bucket Challenge about any other cause will erase the one time that ALS was a household name.”

While the effort is worthwhile, the USC mental health movement may not be progressing like the founders intended.