Social Media Consuming lives of Youth

Scroll less, live more.

Your phone is a tool, not a soul.

Post with purpose.

Be kind, both online and offline.           

These catchy quotes capture the nature of social media and its hold on his users. Social media is a web based social interaction tool that connects millions of users in a fraction of a second. It unites as well as divides, it amuses as well as depresses, it saves as well as wastes time, it entertains as well as wiseacres…the descriptions are endless. Social media is a double-edged sword—it connects and isolates, especially the young users.

Today’s lives of youth spirals around the internet, social media and apps of Artificial Intelligence. Youth, be they rural or urban, educated or boorish, and cultured or loutish have been swept over by this digital communication. Social media has become the playground, classroom, and battleground for today’s youth. Youth is shaping social media; social media shapes youth. The internet is where youth live, learn and express themselves.

This technologically advanced communication is growing almost daily and we wonder where it is taking the world, especially the youth. Often the adults, though matured and educated, are not able to catch up with the progress the youth are making in this communication.

Social media has drastically changed our lives not only in the way we communicate and live; it has changed the way we use our time, the way we think and act, the venues we gather information, the way we entertain and pass our leisure, and above all the way we view the world. Sometimes we do not know if we manage Social Media or if it manages our lives. Human beings are social in nature—meaning, we are interconnected and interdependent with one another. In the globalized society we are linked not only to those who are our immediate neighbours, we are more and more being linked and become communication partners with people living miles apart and people different from us in every way. Our new communication partners are people who are strictly, ‘nothing to do’ with our lives.

The traditional media channels such as radio, television, and print media are commonly called Mass Media. They are largely ‘one-way-communication’ channels. The users were merely consumers, who were often being entertained and informed. Mass Media often bombards with ideas, messages, and information, making the user passive receivers. But today Social Media has made us interactive, often active participants in communication. Mass Media that consumed the users, but now the users of Social Media consume the media, at least in part. It has not just linked us, but ‘hooked’ us. As we consume, the consumers are often consumed knowingly and unknowingly.

Social Media consumes our precious time, relationships, work-outputs, resources, and unfortunately our peace and sanity. Though it has given opportunity and means to interact and actively participate in communications, it preoccupies us throughout the day and night. Certainly Social media has profoundly reshaped lives in the modern world. As much as it has been beneficial, it has also given us significant risks, even many menaces.

Communication is the lifeline for youth, more than we think. In the past decades, they have been ardent consumers of music, cinema and other print contents through mass media. Though they were expensive, they found a way of accessing them. Today the Social Media industry is fed and sustained by young people who are below 30 years of age. But it is also not uncommon to see older adults are hooked to social media in big percentage.

Now, in the past two years or so, when Artificial Intelligence is closely linked with social media, young people, especially students are passionately involved. They use it not only for study, but also for entertainment and even for income generation activities as “Content Creators”. Social Media gadgets such as Smartphones, IPads, and Laptop have become part of their being. Thanks to the Chinese and other cheap Asian manufacturers these devices are made cheaper and cheaper. While a small percentage of youth have used the social media contents beneficially, a large majority have merely used them to pass time and create wastage.

It is beneficial for all stakeholders, including the youth to know the demerits, disadvantages and the imperfections of social media. It is important to know the toxic influence they can have on youth and the transference it can make on the larger society. Often educators and elder-guardians of the society feel inadequate in educating the youth (including children) on social media usage and growing healthy with it.

Society and youth need to know—Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships. If this important life lesson is not learnt before entering adulthood, it would be hard to learn; because social media powerfully disconnects youth with the rest of the society. We need to realize that we live in a society where we are more connected than ever before, yet we feel more alone. Without real human connection our life will be devoid of intimate and meaningful relationships.

Youth is the stage in life when young people learn real lessons, good and bad, moral and evil, things permanent and things passing. Social media easily creates a resounding unreal world where pleasure, easy life, quick-fix solutions are convincingly presented, which young people take for real, and they chase after them in futility.

Young people need constant reminders and even forceful reminders that social media is addictive like any other substance abuse. They should be made to realize that social media is like sugar, it is fine in moderation, but too much can push you to chronic illness. Youths are crazy to get more and more ‘like’s and followers, but they should be made to know that ‘likes are not love. Followers are not real friends and comments are not healthy conversation.’

Years before 21 are important for learning literacy, numeracy, basic sciences and needed skills for life. Though social media looks very creative and innovative, young children and adolescents need to spend enough time also in the conventional learning ways and methods. Social media cannot replace things we learn in Primary and Secondary level of education. Nothing, including captivating social media should be allowed to replace it. Let social media be a tool for connection and not used for distraction for the integral formation of youth.

Fr. Lazar Arasu SDB, Headmaster, Don Bosco SS, Atede-Gulu.