Youth And Social Media

Social media as we all
know is a means of communication that allows people to interact, share information, disseminate information, picture and videos to a large number of people without persons-to-person contact.
The social media have platforms where its users get free information in the world. These platforms enable its users to communicate and share information. The platforms are twitter; a micro-blogging avenue through which people send and receive information. Youtube, an online platform where audios and videos are uploaded and shared; facebook, whatsapp, etc are all social media sites that enable their users to interact.
Social media in today’s world, like every coin, have two sides with both positive and negative implications as far as society is concerned. One thing that should be kept in mind however is that it depends on the society to reap the negative or positive outcome of it.
Sadly, the rate at which the social media have influenced the youths negatively in the society is alarming.
Social media have done a lot of harm to our youths. A lot of wrong information is passed through it to our youths. The way we use social media in this part of the world is nothing to write home about; pornography inform of blue films and obsene plays are shown on our social media sites, thereby sending wrong information to the young people. Under this circumstance, our youths are worse off. They are badly affected. They have wrong and perverted views about life and in most cases, make them not to think aright.
The mode of dressing is also harmpered, just as their thinking faculties are hampered.
Nudity is the order of the day in our society, Girls and young ladies who should have constituted the virtuous group of future women in our society are being led wrongly into prostitution.
Through social media, a lot of obscenity is being passed to our youths, and therefore we know it, a lot of damage has been done. The reason why we have many girls going into prostitution is not only traceable to the prevailing poverty level in our society, but also to misguided information sent through the social media.
Today, we have lost many African values, culture and tradition as a result of the western values and culture we have erroneously imbibed through the social media.
Our values are now skewed and twisted.
Western values have been imposed on us through the social media and we are now in a dilemma. Youths no longer have respect for elders and parents.
The increasing wave of crime and gangsterism cyber bulling and the likes abound in western films and this is what our youths embrace in reality. We are complaining of armed robbery and violence; why would we not reap violence and gangsterism when we allow our youths to keep on imbibing violence through social media.
The most irritating aspect of the harm social media do to our youths is that they make studying burden some for them. Our youths who are mainly students have abandoned their studies for social media. Majority of them waste their valuable time, which should have been used for studying, chatting on social media sites. Youths prefer to stay glued to their social media sites. This is a dangerous trend that we have to reverse if we do not want to jeopardize the future of our youths and our country as a whole.
What does the future of our great country hold in the hands of the youths?
Yet the country wants a better and healthy society.
To achieve a healthy society, the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitudes, and justice upon which hinge other virtues should be emphasised, such ideas as sanctity of life, honesty, truth telling, empathy, trust, respect and integrity should be inculcated in youths to create a better tomorrow.
In achieving all these, the family has a great role to play in bring up their children. The family is the first place a child grows, learns and develops in life. It is also a place where a child learns good behavior, values, morals, attitudes and ways of society. Sadly, most parents in the pursuit of career, jobs, business, do not have time to care and direct their children again.
But the Bible admonishes parents to bring up their children the way they should go and when they grow, they will not depart from it.
Parents have vital roles to play in bring up their children. Parents should develop a good relationship with their children, that will give them hands to value what their children do, and also monitor and be curious to know what their children do with their smart phones, computer, tarbalet. The parents should advise them on how social media would impact their lives positively, if properly used. Also advise them to use it for things that will not cause threat or hazard to their lives.
Not only the family, but also the government. The government should include media ethics and media education in school curriculum, from kindergarten to the tertiary institutions.
The media ethics should guide the youth to know what to do with social media that would be beneficial to their future.
However, the schools on the other hand, should teach and emphasise the positive impact of social media, how the media could be used to source for information, for a research, to enhance themselves by learning more on the internet on their various academic fields of study, and also teach them on how social media could be used to update on current happenings around us.
As well, let them know that not everything they come across on the internet is real in the physical world.
Finally, if the basic tenets of all religions in Nigeria, African Traditional Religion, Christianity, Islam are inculcated into the youths both in their worship and learning centres, it will help the youths imbibe the culture of being morally forthright.
To the youths, there is more to social media than using it for pornography, frauding, cyberbuling, games and other negative activities, but the social media can be used for academic research, sourcing for information, enhancing one’s career, learning on any topic, dissemination of information, and communication, and adverting.
The social media also have a platform where the youth can create groups and pages based on their common discipline that can help in building up connections and opportunities for their respective career.
Nwadigo is an intern with The Tide On Sunday.

Ijeoma Nwadigo