There are many advantages to the internet, but it also has sinister potential.

Cyber-bullying and grooming are just some of the potential dangers lurking behind the screen and now there is another concern for parents to worry about – an online drinking game.

Known as Neknominate, the craze, said to have been implicated in several deaths, involves people filming themselves downing large quantities of alcohol, then nominating someone to continue the game, and posting the video on Facebook.

Naturally, the craze has come in for criticism from health experts and also from drug and alcohol charities whose daily role is to pick up the pieces of people’s lives that are devastated through drinking and addiction.

The Drinkaware charity is calling parents to take a tough stance against the game amid fears the trend could spread to young teenagers.

Research suggests that children are more than twice as likely to have an alcoholic drink if they have felt encouraged to do so.

More than a third (35 per cent) of ten to 17-year-olds who use social networking sites have seen photos of their friends drunk.

Jon Royle, chief executive of the Bridge Project, the largest charity in Bradford helping young people, adults and their families who are experiencing problems with addiction, says Neknominate is “a reminder of how dangerous alcohol can potentially be”.

Jon says many people are aware of the dangers of drugs, but alcohol is so culturally acceptable.

“Binge drinking is dangerous,” he says. “We are dealing with people using drugs, but what we do tend to see is people often mixing drugs and alcohol together and it can be a particularly dangerous combination.”

He says while drinking can be pleasurable and sociable for some, it is still a drug and people can overdose on it.

Matt Birch, operations manager for Bradford’s Lifeline Piccadilly Project, says drinking and drink-dare games have been commonplace for years.

Matt believes the concern is more to do with the binge culture. “We do see young people in the service whose drinking has got out of control over time,” he says, He says participating in drinking stunts such as Neknominate can be very dangerous. “They are talking about several pints of spirits at a time, that can kill people,” warns Matt.

Adding: “We always promote safer drinking, not going over the recommended units.”

Addiction treatment specialist, Yvonne Oliver, who runs Addiction Solutions working within Bradford and Calderdale, says: “Alcohol is very dangerous, and using alcohol consumption as a game isn’t funny, it is about fad culture and particularly with electronic mediums and social networking and peer influence it is appealing to very young people which is so dangerous.”

Yvonne says most young people she assesses say they are not affected by their first or second drink prompting them to drink more, but having five or six shots is potentially lethal as they haven’t built up any tolerance.

She believes it also gives those with a propensity for addiction a taste for it. “It is really frightening, it is not a safe world for our children to be growing up in,” she says.

Yvonne says it’s no good having a ‘text book approach’ to tackling the issue and encourages victims to share their experiences in the media to get the message warning about the dangers.

Hilary McMullen, lead commissioner for alcohol treatment services for Bradford Council, says: “The problem with drinking large amounts of alcohol in one ‘hit’ is you've no gauge of how drunk you’re getting so you’re not in control of the potentially dangerous effects.”

She says another danger is people doing an online dare and drinking on their own, with no-one around if something goes wrong.

“When there’s peer pressure to drink alcohol, it can be difficult to say no, but the alternative could be that you’re the one that doesn’t get away with it and ends up in hospital or worse. What seems like a bit of fun can go badly wrong,” she says.

Katie Hargreaves, a welfare advisor at Bradford University, says: “Hopefully the recent media focus on the game will put a scare factor out there.”

Siobhan Freegard, founder of Netmums says: “Neknominate is a sad example of how the internet accelerates and escalates behaviour which would perhaps remain relatively harmless in a local group or friends.

“If you’re doing it in a peer group in real life, there will be people to tell you when you’ve gone too far and when to stop.

“But competing against strangers online sees people lose perspective and take dangerous risks. There is a limit to what any person’s body can take. People have died from the craze. That’s not fun, it’s stupid.”

For information, support and advice call The Bridge Project on (01274) 723863 or Lifeline on (01274) 735775.