The Screen Age Generation: How Social Media Endangers Youth
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| The Screen Age Generation: How Social Media Endangers Youth By: Zia Uddin |
By: Zia Uddin
Typically, social media from different territories has engulfed people together, akin to people in the Stone Age collecting eggs in one basket. Additionally, social media, as seen in many cases, has become a prominent part of our lives, persistently pitching us to avoid the fear-inducing roller-coaster ride. It offers innumerable blessings and holds importance to the full extent. As the British-American journalist and author, Jon Ronson, beautifully expressed, "The greater thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people."
It's a common occurrence; however, today's marketplace isn't what it used to be, as the presence of AI has shaped our existence. Similarly, I hold the view that creation weighs more than usage, as all social media apps are created by Westerners who have superior command as software engineers and web developers. Moreover, with a lot of infrastructure, Westerners are well-off, civilized, economically stable, and proactive. When it comes to revenue generation, they are much more familiar with terms like solvency, liquidation, and fair budget allocation.
Conversely, as Pakistanis, we are undoubtedly cash-strapped, doomed, and supposed to survive under a recessive economy. Being economically stable is a wider term for us, and it will ever remain a wish to be fulfilled, owing to the filthy governance and escalating illegitimacy in legislation.
We lag behind because our young Pakistanis cannot detach themselves from being attached to social media. Truly, it is evident that few young Pakistanis use social media for positive purposes such as activism, awareness, campaigns, and entrepreneurship, but most of them keep scrolling in vain.
Ruefully, our youth is as attached to social media as a patient is addicted to medication, or as if scrolling could boost their memory, or assist them in enhancing their cognitive abilities, and they might be thinking that scrolling is the source of being intellectual. If they think so, I would term them as dim-witted because being a netaholic is stupidity, nothing else.
According to collected data, Pakistan has ranked 10th globally in terms of hours spent on mobile devices, with Pakistani users spending a total of 99 billion hours on their smartphones in 2023.
Certainly, usage matters. Similarly, the best way to utilize social media, as the American author Erick Qualman states, is that "we don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it."
In conclusion, implementing effective strategies to promote accurate access to social media, particularly for Generation Z and Generation Alpha, is essential. Furthermore, ChatGPT, is one of the biggest threats of the current era, as it prompts the Youth to be copycat, and using it students have become effortless. It has, moreover, buried the core abilities of students like critical thinking and problem-solving, curiosity and imagination. Students therefore must be better off spending time with their readings and shaking rotten ChatGPT off ever.
The writer is a graduate of Karakoram International University.
He can be reached at ziaofficial608@gmail.com
