EXPLORING YOUTH SOCIAL MEDIA FONDNESSFOR ENSURING SUCCESS OF 1MALAYSIA1

By Mohd Hamdan bin Haji Adnan2

Introduction

Youths have always been a very powerful

segment of society. They are the pride of their

nation and the pillars of its strength. Their role

in promoting national unity, integration and

national pride can never be over emphasized. This

is because they have the energy, creativity and

resourcefulness, and more so their idealism. Many

of them will to do whatever they feel to be in the

best interest of their nation. This is because

many of them realized that it is their future that

is at stake.

Youths for the sake of their future should

be the best group to spread the message of oneness

to strengthen the bonds of fellowship and

humanity. Youths must be enlightened about the

evils of regionalism, communalism, racialism and

even fanaticism. The education as well as the

social and political system must guide them to

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achieve these goals.

Youths can make or break any government or

nation. Not only in the past or present, but

increasingly so for the future. This is more so in

nations with higher youth population and

functional information communication technologies

(ICT). The more advance the ICT the stronger the

position of youth in society as can be seen in

many developed nations as compared to developing

ones. Yet, in extreme case, even a functional ICT

facility can help youth bring down a long ruling

dictator like in Egypt. Today’s youth with higher

and better education than their parents and their

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ICT savvy will further make youth a force to be

reckoned with.

With improved education it is hope that

today’s youth usage of social media are for a

positive purpose helping to contribute towards

nation building and social integration. It is

therefore recommended that media education that

place emphasis on social media be taught at school

at the lowest level possible. We know that even

preschool child can be computer literate today.

However, many studies have revealed that

when countries experience youth population bulge

there are more tendencies of social unrest. With

better health care facilities many nations like

never before are now facing the youth bulge like

in the Middle East and Africa. Since the

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advancement of medicine and its introduction, the

element of youth bulge or young people larger

population has become far more salient than

before.3 Nations, especially with big youth

population must fully engage them and ensure that

their interest are given due consideration or face

dire consequences.

The youths increasing usage and fondness for

social media must be considered as an essential

channel to communicate with them effectively.

Governments must be especially knowledgeable of

youth’s media usage, especially the social media.

Otherwise, those governments are courting problem,

immediate and future.

The youth bulge theory represents one of the most

recently developed theories of war and social

unrest. It has become highly influential on USA

foreign policy. Two top USA proponents of the

theory, political scientists Jack

Goldstone and Gary Fuller were USA government

consultants.4

The youth bulge theory may not be an accurate

predictor of social unrest, war and terrorism.Page | 4

This is because they are the products of far more

complicated and interrelated set of factors of

which demographics only plays a part. Also, it

ignores the social consequences of poverty,

corruption and mass employment among youth,

especially young males in developing nations,

where most of the world’s current population

growth occurs. Yet, even when there are other

strong factors and circumstances generating or

enabling mass unrest, the youth bulge is likely to

be among them.5

Studies have shown most developed nations

experience lower population growth than developing

or underdeveloped countries and so the youth bulge

danger decrease. However, with the rapid ICT

advancement the youth of today is becoming more

powerful than ever.

In the Malaysian context, Bank of America

Merrill Lynch 2010 analysis on the impact of

demographic trends on investment opportunities

revealed that Malaysian population in the next 15

to 20 years will be young but poor. This is due to

Malaysia’s relatively higher population growthPage | 5

rate and the inability of the economic growth to

cope with population growth.6

Malaysians youths reading on the Internet that

their future is rather bleak would not feel

motivated for positive actions or their fondness

of the government despite efforts being made to

ensure that their future is actually bright and

that those in power are doing their best to

guarantee it.

Thus, it is hope that the Government

Transformation Plan (GTP) and the Economic

Transformation Plan (ETP) will enabled Malaysia to

move from a moderate income economy to a higher

one and convince youth that their future in the

country is bright. The GTP aims at enhancing the

efficiency of the public service delivery system,

especially in matters directly affecting citizens.

The ETP tries to improve economic competitiveness

and increase private investment to meet the stated

target of Malaysia achieving high-income status

(as defined by the World Bank) by 2020.

The GTP and ETP do not mean much if majority

of the people is unaware of it or do not supportPage | 6

it due to lack of understanding or just ignorant.

This is especially so among the youth and more so

among those seeking employment.

Here, the Malaysian government has invested

in a comprehensive communication strategy,

explaining the programs and their benefits to the

public in a variety of mediums and platforms. The

government must ensure that social media is given

due consideration for youth to provide feedback

and it’s interactive.

Youth Powering Social Media

The power of social media in the hands

of youth was clearly demonstrated by Egyptian

youth when they unite their people from all walks

of life. Their unity was to overthrow Hosni

Mubarak, the country’s President for almost 30

years.

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Picture: Thousand of Egyptians gather in a protest said fuelled

by youth and social media

The earlier success of the Egyptians revolt

were the more amazing as it involved youth who

have generally been marginalised over the years

using the social media to empower themselves and

the people. Many believed that the –

1) The revolt was orchestrated by youth wanting

change. Mostly it is by the unemployed and

educated youth having enough of the archaic,

dictatorial governance of their old leaders. Also,

it is by frustrated youth who wanted a better

country for themselves and their children. Youth

who wanted a say in how their country was being

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managed. Youth just like you who finally decided

to stop the talk and act.

2) It is said that they used social networking

sites like Facebook and Twitter along with SMS in

the initial stages, to communicate their

intentions and galvanize support for their plans.

Undeniably, social networking sites are a

huge source of information and youth know how to

utilise it. They are increasingly becoming more

adept at it. Hence, it is not amazing that social

media and youth can merge to create something

other than the expected mundane status updates

about crushes, relationship drama and senseless

tweets about what they’re having for lunch. That’s

monumental. The revolt speaks to a certain level

of frustration, but it also highlights the power

of youth and unity. It shows how effective youth

in any country can be if they are united for a

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common cause. Let believe in our youth and involve

them in planning our future. After all, youths

are our future. This includes the unity of the

people.

So it is in the best interest of any

government to ensure that the resourcefulness and

the creativity of their youth are harnessed for

the best interest of the nation. This is

especially so for nation building which include

national unity and integration. After all youths

are the new generations for any nation. Presently,

if there is a unity among the people in the world,

then certainly there will be unity and integration

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among our coming generations. Youths can solve or

minimize the internal disputes in the nation. They

must be aware about the situation of their own

nation as well as other nations. Meaning youths of

today and tomorrow must always be vigilant of any

development affecting them and the nation.

Youth as the backbone of the country must

maintain and enhance the nation's unity and

integration to make the nation stable and

prosperous. They must enhance their skill to able

to unite and integrate the people using all

communication channels available to them. Today,

clearly for youths the social media have become a

very powerful tool to unite and integrate the

people.

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Here, uniting means to bring the various

groups of citizens together and make them proud to

be the people of the country or an organisation

and be loyal to it. Unity means to be able to

live together in peace and harmony despite

differences. It celebrates diversity and makes it

the foundation of the organisation or nation much

stronger.

On the other hand, integration is the act or

process of incorporating as equals into society or

an organisation of individuals or different groups

as races or ethnic groups. It includes goals such

as levelling barriers to association, creating

opportunity regardless of race, and the

development of a culture that draws on diverse

traditions, rather than merely bringing a racial

minority into the majority culture. Integration is

largely a social approach.7

In Malaysia’s context, youths must consider

the 1 Malaysia approach as introduced by the Prime

Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak. A scholar,

Professor Dato’ Dr Shamsul Baharin of Malaysia

National University (UKM) explains 1 Malaysia as aPage | 12

national unity process not in the manner of “unity

in uniformity” but rather “unity in diversity”.

It means Malaysian youths must look at 1

Malaysia in terms of the affirmative action’s or

positive discriminations as found in the Federal

Constitution, Government Policies and

implementations. However, youths who are not in

benefits are expected to wonder how long it will

be. It is essential that the authority consider

this to ensure that Malaysia is truly a wonderful

country to be.

Thus, that is why using the social media to

accelerate and enhance the uniting and integrating

process can be the ideal way, especially manage by

youths.

Defining youth

Youth is usually referred to as the time of

life between childhood and adulthood (maturity).8

Definitions of the specific age range constituting

youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may

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not correspond to their chronological age, as

immature individuals could exist at all ages.

Globally, the terms "youth", "adolescent",

"teenager", "kid", and "young person" are

interchanged. Often it means the same thing,

occasionally differentiated. Youth generally

refers to a time of life that is

neither childhood nor adulthood, but rather

somewhere in-between.9 Youth is an alternative word

to the scientifically-oriented adolescent and the

common terms of teen and teenager. Another common

title for youth is young person or young people.

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youth &

This age is when a person is considered a "youth".

Thus, he or she is eligible for special treatment

under the law. However, throughout society this

youth age range varies around the world.

"Youth... those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years."

- United Nations General Assembly.11

"...youth ... comprises persons between the age of 15 and 24. It is

used by ... the World Bank" - World Bank.12

For the purpose of this paper I would like

to use UN and World Bank age range between the

ages of 15 and 24 years as defining youth.

For now we can say that the social media and

youths are increasingly becoming like the rhythm

and the song. Both have become synonymous. That is

to say today’s youth social media usage is the

highest compared to other age category and some

maybe becoming addicted or possibly thinking that

they cannot live without it.

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Social Media

The best way to understand social media is to

define both words. Media is an instrument on

communication, like a newspaper or a radio or

television. Thus, social media would be a social

instrument of communication.  Social media

includes the various online technology tools that

enable people to communicate easily via the

internet to share information and resources. It

can include text, audio, video, images, podcasts,

and other multimedia communications.

In Web 2.0 terms, this would be a website

that doesn't just give you information, but

interacts with you while giving you that

information. This interaction can be as simple as

asking for your comments or letting you vote on an

article, or it can be as complex

as Flixster recommending movies to you based on the

ratings of other people with similar interests.

The main advantage of social media as

oppose to the one-way communication regular

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media is that it is very interactive. Further,

social media allows users to share content,

media, etc. Common examples are the increasingly

popular networking sites like Facebook, MySpace,

Friendster, etc. It also includes YouTube,

Photobucket, Flickr, and other sites aimed at

photo and video sharing. News aggregation and

online reference sources, examples of which are

Digg and Wikipedia, are also counted in the

social media bucket. Micro-blogging sites such

as twitter can also be included as social media.

The rapid usage and the strong impact of

social media are considered amazing when it

overtakes pornography as the number one activity

on the web. This can be considered as truly

amazing. Since Internet birth pornography has

been by far the most popular activity. Yet in a

span of less than 4 years social media overtook

pornography.

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In 2012 social media has reached more

than 50 million users. Radio took 38 years,

television took 13 years, and Internet took 4

years while iPod took 3 years. In comparison to

this Facebook has added 200 million users in

less than a year.

There is no other social media brand

today that has the enormous global reach

combined with the personal intimacy and

immediate engagement of Facebook. Now there are

more than 800 million people on Facebook and of

those, 350 million people connect to Facebook on

mobile devices. Today and every day, 500 million

users log-in to Facebook and create 100 million

"likes" on Facebook pages. In fact, on a daily

basis, there are 2 billions posts liked and

commented on with another 250 million photos

uploaded. This is a living map of human

connections never seen before.

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Youth & Social Media

A 2011 survey from Pew revealed the

expected. That is, online social activity is

highest for teens and young adults. The

findings show that nearly 72% of young adults

and teens use social networking sites, compared

to 40% adults over 30 years old. This is

expected as younger people tend to be digitally

savvy and socially connected online.

The study also revealed that the sites

teens and young adults are spending time on

differ from those of adults. Young people are

more inclined to use MySpace (66% of young

profile owners have an account, compared to 36%

of adults). Further, the same young people arePage | 19

much less likely to have a LinkedIn profile,

with only 7% participating in this career-

oriented site, compared to 19% of adults.

However, the interesting findings in the

PEW 2011 survey are the similarities in Facebook

activity among the groups. About 71% of the

younger generations actively maintain a Facebook

profile while 75% of the older group doing

likewise.

On blogging, according to PEW 2011, 14% of

the young people said they blog compared to 28%

in 2006. That is, 52% of teen social network

users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down

from the 76% who did in 2006. Pew offers and

explanation for this phenomena: “As the tools

and technology embedded in social networking

sites can change and use of the sites continue

to grow, youth may be exchanging macro-blogging

for micro-blogging.”

Further, according to Pew 2011, twitter is

a unique exception to most of the other data on

teens and adults. The data points out that teen

have not been drawn to twitter as they have toPage | 20

Facebook and MySpace.  This is the one area that

teens do not dominate usage over adults. Ten

percent of online teens ages 14-17 and only 5%

of those ages 12-13 use the tool. 

Hence, the phenomenon that perhaps most

distinctively characterizes the generation of

today’s youth, especially those in advance

nations born since 1990 is its pervasive

engagement with social media – media enabled by

the proliferation of new digital (and frequently

mobile) information and communication

technologies. Both old and new media are

consequently awash in near-daily discussions

about the implications of this phenomenon for

young people’s safety, privacy, free expression,

cultural engagement, sense of identity, and

civic role.

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Undeniably, social networking sites are a

huge source of information and youths generally

know how to utilise it better than others. Is it

not unexpected that social media and youth can

merge to create something other than the expected

mundane status updates about crushes, relationship

drama and senseless tweets about what they’re

having for lunch. For example, the Egyptian

revolution highlights the power of youth and

unity. It shows how effective youth in any country

can be if they are united for a common cause.

Thus, it is in the best interest of

governments to ensure their youths will have a

common cause to unite themselves and the people

and that the social media is their best platform.

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A bright and just future in a united and

harmonious environment is what every youth can

aspire to have. Youth, therefore must always be

reminded that this bright and just future is very

much dependent on their actions to make it a

reality. This message must be consistently

communicated through all media that youths used,

especially the social media.

The impact of social media on our society

today is simply staggering. It's stunning to

think about the sweeping changes that social

media platforms have created for human

connections at all levels, including educational

systems, political activities, charitable

organizations and businesses. For sure, Facebook

has defined the promise and the vision of social

media platforms.

Hence, the phenomenon that perhaps most

distinctively characterizes the generation of

today's youth, especially those in advance

nations born after 1990 is their pervasive

engagement with social media - media enabled by

the proliferation of new digital (and frequentlyPage | 23

mobile) information and communication

technologies.

Both old and new media are consequently

awash in near-daily discussions about the

implications of this phenomenon for young

people's safety, privacy, free expression,

cultural engagement, sense of identity, and

civic role. Undeniably, social networking sites

are now a huge source of information and youths

generally know how to utilise it better than

others.

Thus, it is not amazing that social media

and youth can merge to create something other

than the expected mundane status updates about

crushes' relationship drama and senseless tweets

about what they're having for lunch. For

example, the Egyptian revolution highlights the

power of youth and unity. It shows how effective

youth in any country can be if they are united

for a common cause. Now, the social media is not

only here to stay but becoming increasingly

dominant in affecting our daily life' which

includes our ways at looking at things, morePage | 24

globally and democratically. This is especially

so for the Young.

SUGGESTIONS

As governments aspire that their people to

be ICT savvy, it must ensure that they

responsibly and constructively utilises the fast

progressing media. This is more so among the

young who are the faster learners than the elder

generations. Policies and programs to their best

utilisations must be formulated and implemented.

One of the best ways is to ensure that the

ethical and responsible use of the very powerful

social media is to begin as early possible with

the social media best practice taught at the

elementary or primary schools.

Further, governments must monitor any

negative use of social media and take

appropriate actions to neutralise it. Remedial

actions must be constructive and not punitive.

This is more so for the younger generations.

Governments must ensure positive use of the

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social media. This could include for lifelong

education, love of knowledge, instilling love

for the nations, living in peace and harmony,

being proud citizens, high level of toleration,

high level of civic consciousness, etc.

Governments should use the social media to

effectively counter negative development among

youths. For example, governments can use the

social media to instill the love of reading and

writing among youths; build the love for the

environment; etc. We can say that by helping

youths in their activities, especially the ones

contributing towards nation building will bring

good dividend for the future of nations.

Notes

1. Adapted from the original paper entitled YouthUsage of Social Media and Its Impact on SocialIntegration presented at the Workshop for Youth:Freedom of Expression and Information – A Pragmatic& Creative Approach for Youth organised by theInformation Department of Malaysia & UNESCO on the29th of November in Kuala Lumpur.

2. Professor of Communication and Dean of School ofSocial Science at the Universiti of Malaysia Sabah;Advisor and Immediate Past President of the

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Institute Public Relations Malaysia (IPRM); Advisor& Immediate Past President of the Federation ofMalaysia Consumers Association (FOMCA); VicePresident of the Association for the Promotion ofHuman Rights Malaysia (PROHAM), Former Commissionerof Human Rights Malaysia (SUHAKAM), etc.

3. The Effects of Youth Bulge on Civil Conflicts – USACouncil on Foreign Relations, 2010.

4. The Effects of Youth Bulge on Civil Conflicts – USACouncil on Foreign Relations, 2010.

5. Wikipedia on Theory of Youth Bulge.

6. Bank of America Merrill Lynch Investment Report2010.

7. Merriam-Webster, 2011.

8. Macmillan Dictionary for Students Macmillan, PanLtd. (1981), page 1155.

9. Webster’s New World College Dictionary, FourthEdition, 2004.

10. Children & Youth World Bank Website.

11. Children & Youth World Bank Website.12. Children & Youth World Bank Website.

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