Social Media is undoubtedly a gigantic platform with numerous dribs and drabs attached. If associated with youth and protest behavior, it becomes convoluted. Psychologically, studies have discovered that humans are driven by emotions rather than by logic and rationality. On account of social media and youth protest behavior, it is critically important that the individual (user) ought to be media-literate and must have knowledge about human behavior. With both secured, the youth can sift through situations rationally and develop their independent protest behavior. Had Pakistanis and Indians been media literate and well-equipped with certain traits of ethics, they would not have acted out of jingoism for military solutions. It is essential to point out that political chicanery spoils youth protest behavior. By using cyber tactics, politicians threaten the youth bulge with multiple threats owing to their and family security. The youth bulge can churn out productive outcomes in relation to protest behavior regarding political, social, economic, mental, problems across the globe if managed and sensitized properly and rationally. Like a wedding couple, they experience fortnight scuffles from time to time. After some time, they make up, and the placid environment prevails. But if it keeps going on like that, they might divorce one another in the end. Long story short, understanding either of the elements critically and logically will make their relation prosperous. In other words, the youth bulge will have to understand the nature and potential of social media to conform to it thereof.

We examine the association between social media use and youth protest, as well as mediating and moderating mechanisms of this relationship, using survey data collected in Chile in 2010. We found that Facebook use was significantly associated with protest activity, even after taking into account political grievances, material and psychological resources, values, and news media use. The link between overall Facebook use and protest activity was explained by using the social network for news and socializing rather than when it was used for self-expression. Postmaterialist values and political ideologies were not found to moderate the association between Facebook use and protest.

It may not bother someone if someone wills to modify the fourth industrial revolution with the digital revolution which currently is in full swing. After the advent of tech-giants, mainly Facebook and Twitter, the dynamics of struggle as well as resistance against oppression, brutalization, injustice, and violence have dramatically changed. It is pertinent to point out that struggle and resistance have been part of civilizations before the invention of social media, but the form in which they were carried out was by paper or document, if one was to consider the media used. One must pay fervent gratitude to the Chinese for that. The wielding of this sword has become commonplace against political intrigues, political patronage, judicial pitfalls, social and economic discrimination, religious fanaticism, human rights abuses, child abuse, domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, land mafia, tribal scuffles, structural embezzlement, interstate conflicts, and discriminatory and oppressive laws. Political chicanery spoils youth protest behavior. By using cyber tactics, politicians threaten the youth bulge with multiple threats owing to their and family security. The youth bulge can churn out productive outcomes in relation to protest behavior regarding political, social, economic, mental, problems across the globe if managed and sensitized properly and rationally.

Startling it may seem, but there are some examples deemed fit for the aforementioned menaces. In the pattern of citing examples, stands the Arab Spring first. At the fag end of the 21st century’s first decade, Tarik Al-Tayeb, a Tunisian citizen, set himself on fire upon being wrongly jailed by the Tunisian police and beaten for no earthly reason in the very least. This sparked wide protests in Yemen, Syria, Egypt, and Libya with the hope to topple oppressive regimes. It was social media that helped the movement gain global attention. The majority of protestors were youth. Starting from Tunisia, the movement ended with the toppling of Ghadafi, Morsi, and Ben Ali. It was the youth who challenged the authorities, and thanks to social media, the movement came to fruition at last for some nations.

The results will complement the knowledge about media use during long-term protests. In addition, the work investigates the regional specifics of media consumption by youth. Key words: protest, youth, digital media, social networks.

In the list of examples is the popular Chilean women protest in 2019 against sexual harassment. The movement started off in Chile and reached the far corners of Berlin, London, Mexico, New York, Paris, and Barcelona. With the help of social media, the movement became global. The young women demonstrated for their fellows in Chile and stood in solidarity with them. Pulwama Attack in Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan, and by the Indian Air Force in February 2019. In the aftermath of the attacks, social media was engulfed with jingoism for a limited nuclear war. The youth on either side of the border were engaged in jingoistic conversation for a month over the intrusion. Youth in war situations are an extremely vicious lot. Patriotism indubitably knows no boundary between ethics and law and recently organized protests in Gwadar, Balochistan. The one-month-long protest, unfortunately, did not get any national mainstream coverage. There were civil society organizations, human rights activists, and youth activists who took the mantle for the cause of Gwadar via social media and, at last, the CM of Balochistan bothered to tend to the wounds of the masses.

According to a report released in 2021 by Common Sense Media on social media’s effects on teens, about half of the 1,500 young people surveyed said social media is very important for them to get support and advice, feel less alone, and express themselves creatively, as well as for staying in touch with friends and family while social distancing and 43 percent said that using social media makes them feel better when they are depressed, stressed, or anxious. Among LGBTQ youth, 52 percent said social media helps them feel better when they are experiencing these difficult emotions.

The above have chalked out two aspects of social media and youth protest behavior as per historical and contemporary case studies. Now let’s critically analyze what is pounded out above.

Protest activity has become a central means for political change in Chile. The paper examines the association between social media use and youth protest, as well as mediating and moderating mechanisms of this relationship, using survey data collected in Chile in 2010. It is found that Facebook use was associated significantly with protest activity, even after taking into account political grievances, material and psychological resources, values, and news media use.

The link between overall Facebook use and protest activity was explained by using the social network for news and socializing rather than when it was used for self‐expression. Post-materialist values and political ideologies were not found to moderate the association between Facebook use and protest.

Since the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, civilizations across the globe have come under the strain of complexities owing to a glaring phenomenon popularly known to the masses, especially to the youth bulge, as social media. With the whopping ratio of its carriers (users), particularly on account of the age from 12 to 30, this phenomenon is making the youth bulge angrier, meaner, and more aggressive. Not only just that, but it has, in other words, become a pile of garbage. By this, is meant those with fake identities, bots, and the likes. It is vital to mention that the utilization of social media, so far, has not ended up bearing productive gifts for the masses. It has, however, made the identity of individuals vulnerable.

The study examines the possible impact of various types of digital media and social networks on the political and civic engagement of young people in Russia. The use of social and digital media has probably changed the way people interact and participate in various civic and political protests, especially among young people. Despite the large number of studies on youth participation in the protests and the role of digital technologies, there is still a knowledge gap. Some studies emphasize that the impact of social media has minor and indirect effects on the actual participation of young people in protests, but there are those who refute this fact, but there are not enough articles in scientific practice that look at the impact of both mass media and social media on the process of shaping attitudes directly towards a particular protest and the subsequent participation of young people in offline activities. The purpose of this work is to establish the specificity and role of traditional and new media in shaping the perception of the protest action against the construction of the Shies landfill among the participants and non-members of the protests. The design of the study consists of in-depth interviews and public opinion polls. The results will complement the knowledge about media use during long-term protests.

Where does hate start? When a child grows up in a country defined in opposition to the other who is always just about to attack, where the earliest stories of nationhood and homeland erupt from fear of having your identity national and religious squashed out, perhaps hate, in such a place, begins with a deep sense of insecurity.

In spite of the countless stories we are told of our country’s glory; of the successes of our elders who sought a separate homeland for us to thrive in without fear what do we have? The daily suffering of those most vulnerable, whose only crime is not being of the majority faith, is testament to the sham we are taught. The story of our country’s inception as a place where a minority faith is free to endure in safety is only based on romanticized and politically expedient imaginings if barbaric and mindless acts of violence continue to occur against those who are most vulnerable today. In Pakistan, for a while now, we have been witnessing the consequences of a majority that is deeply insecure in matters of faith. As if God requires protection from us mere nobodies, one mob against a single man imagines itself, bizarrely, morally justified.

What are we doing here? Where do we think these actions will take us? Have we done enough to honestly, and bravely, have a conversation among ourselves precisely on the most contentious matters of faith in our republic, and on the bearing our answers will have on the kind of citizenry we aim to be? We have seen a man tortured and burned alive, and this is hardly the only cruelty of its kind inflicted within our borders. As we continue to witness violence upon violence, how much can our minds take? How much can we claim to never forget? How much of it meaningfully moves us anymore?

The great tragedy of our time is multifold. We witness evil in real-time, and yet in spite of condemning it, feel powerless to change anything. We may share the values and beliefs of a religion, yet experience the cognitive dissonance of seeing horrible people claim to be its flag bearers, defining who is and is not deserving of Divine mercy.

Why is it that the prototypical Pakistani of a particular gender and religious leaning feels like he is the most under attack now? Why is the greatest effort at political mobilization one that is led by him? It is defeating to think that over and over again, what we witness is things not changing fast enough, of the old strengthening its grip over the new. Of those who have historically retained power, holding on to it, reminding us that this is how things are and how they always will be.

The tragedy within our tragedy is that this is a system that will continue to fail all parties involved. For those seeking God, what face can one show while upholding a system bent upon doling out judgment and punishments that mortals have no right to enact? For those seeking decency, what does it mean to maintain the family, when the foundations of the system, as is, are built on the blood and tears of its members, particularly the women it so claims to honor? For those seeking power, what does the current status quo afford, if it comes at the cost of human life, every passing day?

If those seeking to hold on to power, in spite of the damage they are causing, seek to attain a kind of immortality; immortality in the present moment, in attempts to prolong power as a way of prolonging life and distracting the mind from its worst anxieties of what is to come; or immortality in another realm, when claiming their violence in God’s name, I hope we will remember, as a collective, to raise a mirror to all such people and attempt to reflect to them the truth of their actions: the truth that sometimes the most evil and lost among us, pretend at being the most rightly guided.

The writer is a Turbat-based freelance contributor. He can be reached at hammalzahid9@gmail.com