“Viral” The Uses and Impacts of Social Media among Youth Today

PETALING JAYA – On 7th May 2018, more than 100 students of University of Malaya gathered at Dewan F, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya to attend a talk conducted by students as a requirement for the subject of ethics and professionalism in social science.

The talk called “Viral” The Uses and Impacts of Social Media among Youth Today, was organized by the second and third year students of University of Malaya. They had invited a speaker Ariz Ramli or famously known as Caprice who is a hip-hop singer, songwriter and composer, to give his views and opinions on social media.

Caprice who has been vocal in advocating anti-bullying and also has been actively engaging with youth and his followers to promote “Bullying Stops Now” campaign using multimedia platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.

“Social media is a powerful tool that has an authority on various aspects of people’s lives including socially, politically and mentally. A 12 years old kid can body shame someone and call people “stupid” on someone’s social media account,” he said.

Caprice lamented that people believe in rumours, false accusations on the social media platform that leads to cyber-bullying and as a result, it automatically destroys the reputation of the innocent individuals.

He also remembered during his young age, he was busy playing on the swing while the kids today have their own gadget stick with them 24 hours.

He added, “If I had kids, they wouldn’t care about iPhone 10 because I will expose them with real books and toys to give them memorable childhood experience for them to reminisce later in their old age.”

Caprice provided a range of suggestions and perspectives on making social media relevant for today’s generation. He believes that social media is a platform that could be a reflection of today’s society regardless the use of language and spreading misuse information.

Apart from educating the audience to use social media wisely, he also put an attention on a renewed culture in learning among people, empowering innovation in the 21st century as an important element in improving and moving technology forward.

Before the release of his recent project, Quran reading app named Mengaji.com, Caprice had released an educational application in 2013, Classruum.com, which had fully been supported by the Minister of Education Malaysia.