Social media Youth still prefer the papers, TV

A recent survey of youth in India has shown that they still prefer meeting each other in person rather than using social media to stay in touch. The survey has highlighted the fact that while a large number of youth use social networking sites and applications, traditional media like newspapers and television are still the preferred avenues to obtain information.

According to a spokesperson of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which conducted the survey across 15 cities in India, around 13,000 youths participated in the survey that dealt with usage of social media, technology, gadgets and innovations in daily life. Sharing details of the approach of the youth in Mumbai, Pradipta Bagchi, TCS vice-president and head, global communications, said, “Gen Z youth of Mumbai are socially collaborative, technologically aware and true digital natives. Our annual survey of high school children across India helps us understand tomorrow’s professionals and create exciting career and learning opportunities.”

The survey shows that 86.5 per cent youth in Mumbai own a smartphone and 79 per cent own a laptop or PC and they use it for various reasons, like networking with friends and families (21.7 per cent), commenting on others’ posts (23.2 per cent) and writing posts (11.8 per cent), among others.

On the question on the most favoured social networking site and messaging applications, a majority of the Mumbai youth said they used Facebook (71.1 per cent) and WhatsApp (79.9 per cent). However, on the question of method of communication with friends, 38.8 per cent said they preferred face-to-face communication over social networking (4.1 per cent) and messaging (23 per cent). A large number of respondents (73.7 per cent), however, admitted that social media helped them keep in touch with family.

When asked about the preferred mode to keep abreast with news, 77.2 per cent of the respondents said they preferred television and newspapers. However, around 44.6 per cent said they also used online sources and 30.9 per cent said they used links from family and friends on social networking sites.

The survey also threw up an interesting fact about dream jobs. A large number of respondents (32.6 per cent) said they would like to become software engineers, followed by 14.7 per cent who said “other engineer”. Surprisingly, professions like medicine had 4.4 per cent takers and teaching 0.8 per cent.