I see the youth, the future, they are busy these days. Busy in creating a newfangled word list. This novel vocabulary defines tweeting, googling, orkuting. You are cool if you are in this. And you might be bullied by many if you are out of this redefined society. It is a status symbol to be visible with maximum number of profiles.
What do these young people talk about, what subjects do their reviews relate to, which all stuff do they discuss and what kind of questions do they raise on social networking sites? The views represented on the internet belong to just one particular lot of people or can these be applied collectively to whole of the modern generation? Are people actively involved only in enhancing their social links or do they actually use this tool for professional, intellectual and brain storming purposes?
The dot net debate or the internet question has numerous extremities.
Solving one log jam might link you to some other slayer virus which possibly will delete necessary data from the hard disc of your intellect to slower down the processing speed of your brain while uploading worthless files, lowering the effective memory and time available for one’s critical jobs. Welcome to the internet world.
But many deadlocks are not insolvable. Step by step any closed loop can be straightened up.
As the first step, one question I would like to raise is that “Is the youth interested in politics”. This needs a serious scrutiny. On various networking sites while analyzing the profiles of many of my friends I observe their comments on political views. “I hate politics” is what most of them have to say.
We talk of an electronic era today, where political parties are using the internet medium for their promotional campaigns. But if people on internet, in general, are not interested in politics then can this e-publicity create any influence in making them vote in favor of any party.
Probably yes!
In recent US elections, the number of young people voting tripled in some states. No state showed an increase of less than 40 per cent. There are undoubtedly many reasons why Obama has captured the enthusiasm of young voters. But certainly his ability to reach them where they live — online — and his use of social networks to allow them to create communities independent of his campaign organization, has played a large role in building their enthusiasm.
If this is the case in US then why cant such be the situation in our country. For the Indian scenario, Vir sanghvi has a say to this matter, young people are keenly interested in politics, have strong views on many events, and are far more articulate than the generations that preceded them. This is justified by strong and sometime fiery comments witnessed by his blogs relating to political matters. And not only his blogs for that matter, all of us should also remember the recent twitter comments by SRK and his fans.
Moving to the second step, I have the next question. Can the internet users be grouped together for their same thoughts?
The interactive nature of the Internet helps to see how different people respond to issues and events concerning economic issues, religious issues, cross border relations of the country, the government leaders, etc.
Most of the internet users seem to form consensus on many issues of national importance. The general attitude of any learned youth who post comments on blogs of famous writers are perhaps the views of a whole new generation of affluent urban Indians, not just those who are on the Internet.
Gloom observed on news channels after death of Jyoti Basu in west Bengal was of little importance on the web, proving this internet generation has disapproving attitude towards Marxism.
Then talk about the ancient disputes about medieval mosques. These are trivial issues concerned only with the old age bracket. Babri masjid is one such religiously motivated political issue about which youth have not much to say on the internet.
The cohort on the net represents modern beliefs. They are against backwardness. They mean equal rights for everyone. This generation hates anything that sounds primitive or regressive. They want to revolutionize the society. And they do have the power to do so.
What this generation has to say about our leaders?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a clear winner for our youth. Except for the hard BJP core, most bloggers and tweeters respect Manmohan Singh.
This seems to be a reflection of the respect that Singh commands among educated Indians who see him as an icon for modernity.
Cross border relations of India is another worth mentioning issue.
People on internet are hard line xenophobes. Their remarks after some incidence of national disrespect proves this fact.
This is a strongly patriotic generation that is driven by a vision of India as a potential superpower. Anybody who attacks India or is seen as standing in the way of India’s rise is treated harshly.
But there is no generalized hatred of Pakistan or China on the whole.
And finally: The distinguishing features of this Internet generation?
Commitment to modernity, a strong nationalist streak and contempt for the ‘socialist’ past and those who represent it.
The question has an open end. Extremities are immeasurable. The points I raised today are just a few drops belonging to the vast oceanic extent of the debate but are indeed worth mentioning and deserve a notice from everyone, our leaders, the learned writers, the old and the young themselves.
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