CVC: Teach youth social media’s benefits, pitfalls

Ivan Cruickshank, executive director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC), is calling for a wide-ranging educational campaign on social media use targeting young people as the Government considers regulating these online platforms for minors.

“We need to have broader campaigns around helping young people to understand the benefits, but also the pitfalls of social media,” he said.

His statement came against the backdrop of research conducted under the CVC’s Strengthening Access Inclusion and Leadership for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Project (SAIL-SRHR), found that social media increases adolescence exposure to explicit content.

The study, which was conducted between May and June, investigated the psychological and behavioral effects of pornographic media consumption on adolescents in Clarendon.

Twenty-three participants aged 10-19 took part in the study. The researchers concluded that although there was moderate pornography consumption among participants, many were exposed to the explicit content via social media platforms.

“A number of them from the study indicated that some perspective they had about how sex should occur , and how they just engage with sex, and how they should meet people around sex came out of those experiences of watching porn,” Cruickshank noted.

The study was conducted by three youth researchers trained under the SAIL-SRHR project.

Over a six-month period, 15 young people were trained in participatory action research. They were then supervised by a lecturer from the University of The West Indies to carry out research on the specific among their peers.

“Young people should be doing studies about themselves, they should be trying to understand themselves, rather than us adults doing research and then sharing the findings with young people. So, our objective was to get them to the place where they can go out and do the research themselves,” Cruickshank said.

He noted that the project is being implemented by CVC in partnership with Alinea International and funding support from Global Affairs Canada. It also involves providing sexual productive health information, knowledge and support, and social enterprise capacity building.

But Cruickshank, in the meantime, also lamented what he describes as a failure of the Jamaican society in helping young people learn how to navigate the impacts of social media.

The CVC executive director is pushing for regulation of the platforms, as well as encouraging better parental oversight.

“Allow our young people to continue to have the benefit of social media, but (we should) also to be able to manage the content that gets to them,” he told The Gleaner.

A recent national survey on social media and its impact on children and adolescents found that more than 90 per cent of respondents support Government regulation of minors’ social media use, while nearly 84 per cent favour the establishment of a national policy framework to guide safe social media engagement among young people.

The survey, commissioned under the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Community Arranged Response Efforts (CARE) Agenda.

A total of 1,027 adults were surveyed across all 14 parishes.

It was also revealed that Jamaican youth under the age of 24 spend an average of six hours daily on social media platforms. This comes amid research pointing to growing links between excessive social media use and mental health challenges among young people, including anxiety, depression, disrupted sleep patterns, low self-esteem and social isolation.

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton told The Gleaner that the Government will be implementing an education campaign regarding the findings on the research over the next six months.

“We are going to be driving in health a public education programme, consultations with various groups, student association, teacher’s groups, parent groups, over the next six months to highlight both understanding and the possibilities of what can be done,” he said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com