Facebook ban in Indian educational institutes- an youth perspective

 Social media phobia is encroaching in every educational institute of India in an extent that the firewalls are blocking it from the shared network to the personal investigations as watch dogs by the authorities, administrations and teachers.   According to a Facebook's statement as on December 31, 2012, it has 1.06 billion monthly active users (MAUs) worldwide. Users in Brazil, India and Indonesia represented key sources of growth in fiscal 2012 relative to the prior year. Facebook has 71 million MAUs in India as of December 31, 2012, an increase of 54 percent compared to the same period in 2011. 63% of Facebook users in India are below 24 years old and 73% of them are male (2012 report). Interestingly, the Indian academia is extensively allergic to social media arguing that it is nothing but wastage of time. The argument is surprisingly supported with the voices of system-educated Indian gray hair administrators and CEOs who thinks social media indeed is wastage of productive time by their paid employees. The youth are taking looped path to break the firewall and access facebook. Here’s one such page with options: http://tricktactoe.com/tricks/tricks-to-open-facebook-when-it-is-blocked/

Recently I was discussing with a group of peer leaders to understand their take on whether social media is also a learning platform rather than wasting time and the reply was positive. Most of them believe Facebook is a platform to learn a lot that’s not usually taught in conventional school.  Even social media is a great platform to connect with ‘likeminded’ peers to share ideas, communicate freely (very good tool for the introverted youth to participate in discussion, voice opinion). 

Vishakha stated “at fb I have access to : 1) Amazing artworks throughout the world which I won’t be able to see otherwise as its more interesting to see them here, rather than on individual websites 2) Share my work and get criticism which helps me improve and I learned specially, How to Multi-task  I work hard throughout the day, but I access fb too all the time. It doesn't affect my work quality, it just gives my mind time to relax’. She added “ It has given me a confidence boost to share my thoughts openly, to realize what I really like. But be careful, if you are pro-fb like me, people will judge you, they will call you addicts. But in the end you should know what you are using it for - Sharing dumb troll pics, or discussing your thoughts, interests, artworks and music… Art is not just painting in your room, art is experienced within you, and unless and until you feel what you are doing, and connect with other people artistically and emotionally, you are not doing justice to yourself.’  Shakti malik mentioned  that FB is helping him to communicate, to know the new things etc, but he also agrees that it take its toll if one gets addicted.  Gulshan agreed that he is learning art and music from facebook.  The youth confirmed that the social media is much better than TV as it’s a two way communication with lot of scope to discuss, voice opinion, exhibit works and  communicate. 

Here’s a part screen grab of the online discussion after a casual group discussion, offline :

 The problem is perception of 'learning' and consecutive generation gap in understanding the core values of learning. Among the older generation of India, learning means reading books, listening to lectures in a class room, finishing homework and delivering the same 'accurately' at the exam to score high. It neither has any scope of interaction, beyond box wisdom or self learning. The over induced spoon feeding makes the learning scenario unattractive to  the youth. In the 'India Human Development Report 2011' prepared by Institute of Applied Manpower Research the main concern was the drop outs of school which can become significantly high if the schools appear ‘boring’ (which is a fact, actually).