A cross section of parents and youths in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have advocated that the positive use of social media is important for youths development and advancement.Some others are of the opinion that the impact of social media on the youths are more negative than positive, therefore, they should be checked.The parents and youths gave their opinions on the use of social media by youths in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.Mrs Nkechi Okoronkwo, a parent said that social media was an advancement of technology and should be embraced positively by the youths in order to keep them abreast with the technology as it developed.It is the advancement of technology that has brought about social media, and in a world that is said to be a global village, every youth born in this generation is supposed to be abreast with the technology.You follow it as it develops, unlike in our time when this technology was not available.We the older generations are struggling to catch up and since it is a development that came in the time that this present youths are born,It is important that they follow it up. It is a good development, she said.She therefore advised that youths should do away with the negative effects of social media and key into the positive as it are more beneficial.Another respondent, Miss Jenifer Nwaora, a Corp member said social media had so many negative and positive effectsand these effects were experienced more by the youths. Some of the positive impacts of social media are that through social media people get connected to the world, a lot of people get to know what is happening within and outside their terrain.Information is also shared on social media, through this medium, a people dont really have to sit together to have some unofficial meetings.There are groups that are created on social media to connect different people and give them the platform to discuss as if they were together.Nwaora said that on the other hand, the negative effect of social media outweighed the positive as it had served as a tool for both social and economic crime in the society today.For me, I think the negative effect of social media outweighs the positive effect. People are usually engrossed in social media that most times their body is present but their minds are absent.A lot of women forget themselves while fondling with their phones and they forget their pots on fire until the food gets burnt.Some visit sites that are unsolicited and there they watch pornographic pictures and videos and this can make them sexually aroused and can be dangerous.Also, people steal through the social media, they introduce business that are not genuine and get you interested, a lot of people go about deceiving people all in the name of internet business, she said.Another respondent, Mr Ahmed Dada, a civil servant, said that social media had enhance unity among the youths as well as enrich their foresights on happenings around the globe. We have discovered that the positive impact enhances unity among youths. They relate well with each other irrespective of where they are and where they come from.Social media can also be used to get current development in the world, in other words enriching their foresight and brain on what is happening in the world.Also, youths use social media to learn, especially the students; some of them use it to do their assignments.They use the social media as an additional means aside their textbooks and notebooks to enrich their contents.Even in the political level, they use to promote hate speeches; hate speeches are speeches that have hatred in it. People from an opposing party go to the social media to post such speech against the other party, he said. (NAN)
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