Social media — a boon or bane for our social fabric

Islamabad:Technological advancements have propelled human civilization forward by unlocking tremendous opportunities of knowledge, innovation and connectivity along with presenting formidable challenges needed to be addressed.

Whether technology becomes a blessing or a curse is a nuanced question and its impact is shaped by the choice societies make regarding its development and application and so is the social media a latest but ticklish mode of communication.

It is not only a tool for communication but a pivotal force in reshaping the life of youth, comprising a major chunk of population offering significant opportunities and challenges in different countries including Pakistan. According to DataReportal, there were 111.0 million internet users in Pakistan at the start of 2024, when internet penetration stood at 45.7 percent.

Pakistan was home to 71.70 million social media users in January 2024, equating to 29.5 per cent of the total population. As this tool is used education and positive information sharing, it is also used for promoting nefarious propaganda, mud-slinging and character assassination.

Sometimes it becomes too lethal for sponsoring anti-state narrative maligning the nascent minds and creating unrest in society. Therefore, the saner elements take strong exception of negative information sharing and tarnishing image of our state institutions, urging to promote and share positive content on these media.

“We direly need to promote positive narratives about digital skills and a clear distinction between hate speech, disinformation and misinformation,” stated a lawyer and Internet Activist, Nighat Dad. We must educate youth how they can play role in combating online narratives based on propaganda and disinformation.

Although these platforms have economic impact in terms of monetization, promoting business and digital skills yet the question lies, whether we could add to capacity of educators for training of youth considering such developments? Are we focusing on AI, emerging technology, opportunities that these technologies are bringing?

“As our youth comprises over 60 per cent of total population with many among them yet to learn positive use of social media, the government must devise a plan to prepare youth from school level to use social media platforms for positive purposes and economic benefits,” advocate Nighat Dad said.

It is important to educate them about their responsibilities to use these platforms for positive gains and penalties for their illegal usage.

Digital Media Expert and former Chairman P@SHA, Badar Khushnood said, “Any technology has its good or bad tendencies that entirely depend on how a user utilizes it as he underlined that proper training on use of technology is imperative to extract maximum advantage. “Majority of students utilize internet or social media platforms for getting education, doing research, learning skills and earning,” said Badar who is also Co-founder of Bramerz and fishry.com.

These platforms have great utilization for students. Therefore, parents and teachers need to guide children and students from the very beginning on constructive use of social media platforms. He also proposed teachers training to equip them for training our younger generation to yield positive social impacts and economic benefits. As the world becomes a global village due to internet connectivity, offering everyone a level playing field to learn and excel, these platforms must be used for studying, online business and other economic benefits.

In this regard, the government also has an important role to play in adapting new business models and technologies and disseminate this knowledge to citizens enabling them to compete in digitally emerging world and benefit from flow of information in multiple areas. The same time we also need to have a strict vigil on misuse of these facilities in promoting hatred and objectionable content, adulterating innocent minds as it is sometimes too worrisome that people cannot operate different social media channels at homes.

Then there is also political or religious maneuvering of innocent minds by hostile elements to distract people from their genuine notions and positive thinking. This badly harms our norms and culture. Therefore, the government must formulate policies on use of social media considering the best international practices,” Badar emphasised. Law enforcement is necessary to check misuse of social media as well as ensuring that our talented youth earning foreign exchange form these modes is positively engaged in digital businesses .

Prominent Educationist and National Coordinator Inter University Consortium for Promotion of Social Sciences Pakistan, Muhammad Murtaza Noor said the importance and impact of social media cannot be ignored and there is dire need to capitalize our youth potential making them prosper their businesses within the country and abroad. “For this purpose, we need to initiate a special campaign on this important topic to inform our citizens about merits and demerits of social media and educating them on relevant laws in vogue to check negative use of social media,” Murtaza said.

No doubt we have numerous success stories where our students and youngsters excelled locally and internationally winning laurels for the country, but there are scores others busy in misusing these facilities. Therefore, a strict vigil is needed to ensure positive use of social media for education, research and economic benefits, the same time tightening noose around those promoting hatred and airing obnoxious material.