Teenagers And The Social media

 

In the last three weeks, I have had cause to interact with a number of teenagers. From the interaction, I realised that times have changed, indeed. The opportunity also brought back to life mixed memories of the past in me. What I did not fail to notice was their connection with their mobile phones.

They have rich relationship with this new technological device. They touched the screen at intervals with various facial expressions depending on who they chatted with and the content of the conversation.

The passage from childhood to adulthood has several mines. Successful passage requires mentoring and informed guidance. What social media and other allied technologies have done is to lace this channel with a new landmine. It is noteworthy to highlight figures from the National Demographic and Health Survey (2013), which reveal that 23 per cent of women aged between 15 and 19 have begun childbearing.

Ten per cent of this 23 per cent are young people in urban centres. Since social media’s use now is largely in urban and semi-urban communities, then it is only rational to begin to consider how it is aiding a rise in this figure. This is apart from other issues for both boys and girls. It is easier for young people to connect even when physical walls are placed between them and other friends. Access to 1 GB of data is almost akin to giving a teenager return ticket to all the countries on two continents. For those of them resident in rural communities, we understand that gender inequality, lack of education and early marriages, among other issues, are responsible for teenage pregnancy.

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Facebook, WhatsApp, 2go are the most popular with teenagers in this clime. Despite age restriction and cautions, underage ones are known to circumvent the rules and meet the conditions even if they have to lie about age. Pictures and videos are the most popular with teenagers in terms of content they share online. Early exposure to contents and people that they do not have the mental strength to relate with puts them in danger.

In October 2015, CNN’s Anderson Cooper contributed to the understanding of teenagers and their use of social media. Called #Being13: Inside the Secret World of Teens, the one-hour @documentary sought to see the injurious effect of social media on young people’s mental health. Good health, after all, is about a person’s physical and mental wellbeing. It is a recommended viewing for any parent, institution or guardian willing to take a peep into the interesting world of teenagers who already have ongoing engagements with influences from hormonal changes. The documentary also captures the analysis of hundreds of postings shedding light on this new behavioural change that social media have thrown around teenagers. It is a two-year effort deserving of note and attention. In Cooper’s observation, for young people, ‘every tweet, every picture posted on Instagram can be judged and used to see where you are on the social hierarchy.’

Stakeholders need to begin to programme around safe social media use. They need to figure out how lack of ‘like’ for a picture posted on Facebook can be a source of stress to a teenager. For the African parents, who think that denying their teenagers access to the social media such as phones and other gadgets is the solution, they need to know that theirs is not a sustainable way out. Teenagers relate with one another. They share experiences and even spend more time with their peers in school than at home. That option only works if all parents can do the same. The solution lies in keeping an eye on their online activities. Parents need to create room for communication with teenagers and encourage them to share their online experiences and ask questions. Such sessions should not be judgmental and it should not be about handing out stern instructions. Teenagers, just like adults, who spend a lot of time online, tend to share the challenges they are going through using innuendoes. There are known cases of cyber bullying that have led to depression and some even progressing to suicide.

Figures from the National Population Commission put the population of teenagers in Nigeria at about 60 million. That is over 30 per cent of the country’s total population. Any nation which understands that young people are the posterity of the country will take that demography seriously and programme issues affecting them well. Institutions like the European Union that understand the need to protect the future of the next generation are already considering legislation that anyone under the age of 16 needs to extract permission from their parents to use social media platforms, messaging apps and blogging sites.

There are no statistics showing the number of teenagers initiating sexual activities based on unguided information they are accessing through their mobile phones. It will be helpful to have such statistics. In an age where ‘sexting’ is becoming a fad, in a generation where the music videos from cable television always have themes of quick money, sex and booze, it is a difficult time to raise a teenager. Parents need to encourage them to engage more in cultivating relationships and understanding how to navigate them and even making small talks so that they do not end up as a social disaster. The world out there is not of ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and ‘retweets’; it is more about good social networking skills and human relationship.