A decade ago, the social circles of youth were limited by physical proximity. Today, driven by the widespread penetration of new communication technologies such as i-phones, instant messenger and online social networks, the youth are the most socially networked generation, and now have what could be termed ‘ a global DNA’.
Youth now are being increasingly versatile with new social media tools to create a common stage where strangers share a platform with sense of camaraderie, bereft of the hierarchies that have been given to the practice of socialization.
New social media have become the new blue-eyed boys for youth, helping them generate and invest in resources and benefits called social capital through their social networks. These benefits include trust, help, emotional support, wider range of contacts, access to new job opportunities, ability to mobilize solidarity, and a sense of belonging to a community, among others.
Social capital, created through social exchange, has been found to change the way the youth understand themselves, their relationships and the way they communicate with each other.
Given the fact that youth must have their own social capital resources in their (offline) physical world; the question arises of what happens to their existing stock of social capital when they go online, into a virtual world? Is there a gain or loss in their offline social capital?
Since an offline-online dichotomous existence is synonymous with the social fabric of today’s youth, fears emerge out of concern that new media might be harming real world relationships. The popularity of the new medium as a tool for socialization has raised questions of how it relates to offline socialization. How do youth cope when exposed to the so-called ‘surreal’ world where different realities overlap?
For years, critics of the new social media have warned of its ‘displacement’ effects, that through its entertainment and information capabilities, it draws people away from family and friends. Further by facilitating global communication, it reduces interest in local peer community.
But now murmurs about the new media playing a congruent role in the social lives of youth are being heard more strongly, across the globe. The youth today aren’t retreat from the world but engaged in an intense engagement with it. Social media offers youth a quixotic fusion of controlled privacy and a mind- expanding freedom.
Youth use the new social media for avoiding the depreciation of their offline investments in social capital (for e.g. strengthening their friendship by keeping in touch with their offline peers through the e-mail or instant messaging) and also for increasing their existing levels of social capital (e.g. forming new friends online through social networking sites). New forms of social capital resources are formed when youth go online (e.g meeting people from diverse backgrounds, from across the globe). Youth’s online experiences sometimes even translate to offline gains in social capital (e.g. finding help for emotional problems from an online discussion forum).
Globally the trend among media savvy youth is in favour of spending more time socializing online. ‘Virtual’ social capital resources may be the new kids on the block, but the ‘old folks’ (the real world social capital resources) have nothing to fear, for the new media act as a magnifying glass, expanding the communicative environment of youth. New social media do not totally erode what the offline world offers.
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