Young India's choices

Both newspapers and television, considered “traditional media” in this social media age, can rejoice over a recent survey that found India’s youth overwhelmingly get the news from these platforms. With the traditional media’s professional authentication methods being more refined than open platforms, and given that they are also part of the digital news environment, they have a crucial role in a changing environment of electronic and digital overload. This is a trend that has already evolved as today’s youth are aware and “socially collaborative, technologically aware and true digital natives”, as a TCS survey notes.

There’s much to be happy at the survey’s findings among 13,000 young people in 15 cities. A sizeable proportion prefer face-to-face communication with friends over social networking platforms. So India may not inherit dysfunctional aspects of the modern media environment, that threatens to reduce the youth of some nations to zombies. The fears of becoming a dystopian society may be overblown. But it’s good to know India’s young are still drawn to real world issues pegged to our society.

We may lament over changing preferences on professions — with more wishing to be software engineers rather than doctors or academics. This may only reflect the global era we inhabit. But it’s heartening to note that many young people also use social media platforms to keep in touch with their extended families. This combination may suit India best.