It’s not unusual to see some sort of transformation post making the rounds on social media each January, but this year the ten-year challenge seems to be the most popular one yet.

If you’ve missed it somehow, social media users, especially Facebook users, have been participating in this challenge which asks them to share a photo of themselves from 10 years ago and now, side by side for comparison. There are a few variations, but that’s basically what it boils down to.

Celebrities have gotten in on the fun and there are plenty of versions poking fun at the challenge.

For the most part, this has been a reminder as to why social media is fun, but like all trends online, some are worried it’s a scam or conspiracy.

The concern is that the challenge was manufactured to help facial recognition databases. While the challenge wasn’t manufactured since it’s been around quite a while, it’s important to remember that anything we post online is mined for data.

This challenge isn’t likely to be much more helpful for facial recognition data than other pictures we post of ourselves as most of the photos used were already accessible anyway.

Have you participated in the challenge?