SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS INFLUENCE ON YOUTH CULTURE

Daniel Mukelabai
SIN: 21170160

Definition of Youth Culture and the emergence of Social media use.

Youth Culture is the term used to describe the norms, values, practices, and styles that are shared
by young people. Such culture changes from generation to generation among youth who consume
largely of what is termed ‘Popular Culture’.
Information and communication technology has changed rapidly over the last 20 years, with a key
development being the emergence of social media. There is general consensus that one of the most
popular Internet activities among college students is social media. The use of social media by
university students in Zambia is also increasing rapidly. The 2015 survey conducted by the Zambia
Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) found that 63% of Internet users
in Zambia spend their time online on social networking sites while about 71% of those that own
smart phones use their devices to access WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Skype and Twitter for
communication using instant messaging or voice calling (ZICTA,2015).

Influence social media on youth Culture:

However, such use of social media use has endless effects, on the youth, ranging from positive to
negative, such as:
• Exposure to pornographic content through access to any requested for content:
The vast exposure through social media has permitted many a modern youth to be always aware
of current world affairs all around the globe, being able to be updated on the latest updates on
fashion, music, economy, social development, politics and news, for instance on facebook pages
such as Mwebantu, Zambian Watchdog, among others. On the negative side, such unwarranted
exposure has led to the corruption of many teenagers, who have become exposed to illicit material
content that is shared through social media platforms, for example, in a post published on the 23rd
of October, 2019 reported by a Facebook Page ‘Kalemba’ stated that the Zambia information
Communications technology (ZICTA) reported that women, in Zambia, have increasingly become
notorious for sharing pornography, utilizing social media platforms such as WhatsApp and reels
to solicit males, of whatever age, including youths for sex. This leads youth to practice the very
things that they largely feed on. A report published on Facebook had a video of an Ibex Hill, Lusaka
youth who was having sexual intercourse while on camera, and earlier on a similar event had
occurred at The National Institute of public administration (NIPA). More so, from the influence of
media celebrities who pose nude on social media platforms for contracts.
• Crime Increase:
With the recent trend in social media celebrities displaying themselves as thugs and thieves for the
purposes of entertainment, such as, in Zambia, figures as ‘Ndine Emma’, ‘Ba Matero’, youth are
led to accept as true and doable the actions portrayed, to unruly behaviour, since it seems to be a
normal way of living. This has resulted in youth and even children to freely engage in riotous
behaviour. In Zambia, currently, due to increased cases of crime such as theft, murders, and battery
of innocent victims by many a youth of Chibolya Compund in Lusaka, The Armed forces have
been coerced to clear the community of many exhibiting such unruly behavior; Such youth who
have been nothing but social media influence victims.
• Drug Addiction, and Decline in School performance.
Drug addiction is a world-wide problem affecting youths. This is a highly controversial aspect of
influence, that begins from group influence, peer-pressure from friends, and now, the much more,
social media, through celebrities who sing music while smoking, or drinking or even in movies.
The youth easily adopt such culture and think it is a fun, modern way of living. A UNICEF report
showed that adolescents aged 15 to 19, 1.4 percent of the Zambian population had ever used drugs.
Many a claim is unemployment, as would be the case in Zimbabwe; but; laziness, a factor affecting
the average youth, who in a report, spend as high as 5.8 hours a day on social media, and now even
most of the day. This leads to a decline in taking interest in work and even in class performance in
school. The Basic Teachers union of Zambia (BETUZ) attributed the continued trend by pupils to
depend on exam leakages to the tendency of spending more time on social media instead of
concentrating on studies. Further, former BETUZ Copperbelt secretary Christoopher Simukonda
was quoted in the media to have expressed concern over the lack of concentration and the
subsequent dependency by pupils on examination leakages to the tendency of spending too much
time on social media at the expense of studies. Lusaka Times reported that a named Grace
Fellowship Ministries senior Pastor in Chililabombwe said in an interview that social media is
harmful because pupils often look at obscene material which distracts them from education
research and waste a lot of time.
• Distorted Perception of Reality, leading to depression and consequent suicides:
Social media has also exposed youths to unrealistic standards of beauty, success, and happiness,
and to make them feel inadequate or dissatisfied with themselves, due to comparisons with
celebrities or other persons who may appear to have more attention, likes or followers than them,
leading to depression, disconnection with real life, for want of likes, or commendation from
people, many teenagers feel as if they are not loved, leading to higher levels of suicides. The Centre
for investigative journalism reported that at The University of Zambia (UNZA) alone, there have
been five student suicides so far this year, and the management is struggling to handle the influx
of students seeking counselling. Such incidents are highly related to social media influence that
leads youths to accept reality for what it is, for things such as financial difficulty, or mental
capability, relationship breakdowns, and fear of shame, and so attributed to mere depression, for
example on the 17th of October, 2023, a Facebook news page ‘Zambian eye news’ reported that an
11-year-old committed suicide for no further reason other than that the mother told that she had
never been happy since the child was born.
Such influence can only be reversed if much effort is exercised in teaching the youth to utilize
social media for more industrious activity, that is both profiting morally, in a lucrative manner.