Social networking MU grB/Conclusion
| Several years ago our grandparents and parents were able to say, ‘When I grew up, my parents taught me everything I knew because the world I was born into was the world they knew. At this particular time, the world our children are growing up in is not the same world that we grew up in, Margaret Mead[[1]] |
Our Opinion With the widely availability of these interactive online experiences we cannot help wondering of the role we teachers are now faced in helping the young people make their online life rich, with good level of conversations, explorations, and the ability to discover and nurture friendships. We must keep in mind that 30% of our students are spending up to 5 hours on Social Networking Sites per day, The question to which parents and educators must find an answer is how to help the young generation make good use of the time they spent on these sites. In a way our present generations might have difficulty imagining or even believing, that this new generations today is engaging in relationships and community mediated by digital technologies in a better way, with more trust than when being face to face. In fact, they become so used to the technologies which are ubiquitous to them that they are not even aware of them as they focus on the individuals with whom they are communicating. According to our research 91% of the secondary and tertiary students log on their Social Networking Sites at least once a day. What a digital divide they are creating with the adults of today and watch out how the gap is widening between them and the present teachers who are not using social networking. Today teachers as well as other adults have no other alternatives than to get into the young people’s band wagons, putting aside their ego, and journey with them, accepting that they also can teach us something. Young people are continuously fed with new information and new technology, and they think that our generations are 'fossilized'. We have to learn their ways. If we do not do that, we might end up as the rejects of the society, discardable persons. In almost every family there are relatives or close friends who either have settled abroad or studying in these countries and there is a need to communicate and keep contact with them, share news and learn from their new enriching environment. Taking pictures and videos have become so easy and so common with enhanced mobiles or cheap and affordable digital cameras. Almost all events can be captured easily and shared with loved ones remotely as the technology allows it. These sharing of photos bring people closer and they do replace a thousand words. Discussing personal interests is very common among young people and tend to have more ideas with more people listening and giving a second opinion. They can converse more freely on matters which would have been difficulty during a face to face talk. There is a great need among Mauritian students to widen their circle of friends. This allows them to make new friends easily. On face book there is a multiplying effect when it comes to introduce friends. You not only know your friends but also the friends of your friends. And the young people are crazy about that. There is certainly a lot of self-social development going on when people share their experiences with members of new circles By considering the opinions expressed by this young generation we must come to the conclusion that there is a Generation Gap which is widening between us and them. |
