Young people rely on their smartphones to access information or news, according to a youth group representative.
Jazzmen Isaac of Koror State – State and Cultural Affairs / Youth Division were among the four panelists in the Information Integrity workshop held last week with media practitioners and social media influencers.
Isaac said his work entails talking with youth involved in the performing arts and sports who consider social media as a platform for entertainment and to pass away the time away.
“The youth nowadays don’t necessarily understand the platform of the social media,” he said.
He also added that most of the young people aged 8 to 15 he talked to don’t understand exactly what is going on with COVID-19 and tend to consume more information from Facebook rather than from the local news.
The youth nowadays tend to gravitate towards the not-so-serious information,” he said.
“A lot of the young people he talked to, are not aware of the existence of the COVID-19 hotline, instead, they go to social media for information.
He said that several young people he talked to especially those who graduated from high school said border closure had an impact on them especially their access to off-island schooling.
A lot of young people feel that the youth are not widely represented during leadership meetings which can be an opportunity for the younger people to be part of discussions involving COVID-19, related Jazzman.
“Another question they have asked is what action is the Palau National Youth Council doing in the midst of the pandemic?”
Most younger people also see a disconnect with their elected leaders as “information is dispersed to the parents is summarized as cliff-notes to the younger generation, so that how the information gets disrupted …, there is a disconnection in the communication.” he added. (B. Carreon)