Social media is a platform for each person of the world to discuss about different issues and as well explain their own ideas and share the staff that they think it worth it to share. But yet lots of people even now don’t know what social media is and what is the difference between mass media and social media? So social media are computer tools that allow us to share or exchange ideas, information, emotions, memories and even more with each other through a particular network. Through this paper, I would focus on the positive aspect of social media in environmental awareness and education.
Nowadays social media has been a very important part of our lives from entertainment (Facebook, instagram, twitter etc.) to Emails, education, news and online shopping. And it plays a vital role in changing our whole lifestyle, social media includes social networking sites like; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and etc. are key tools for organizations and government to promote their selves and for companies to promote their products. These sites have become a day to day routine for all of us, now social media is inexpensive and widely accessible electronic tools that facilitate us to publish and access information or to build relationship and professional networks or communication E.g. LinkedIn which is a social site to connect professional from every section in every part of the globe, a lot of environment activists from all around the world are connecting in LinkedIn to build a global community.
The only problem is high rate of internet usage in our country and disruption of internet signals and accessibility of internet widely in every corner of the country according to current situation of war in existence situation on the country but in capital city of Kabul mostly 85% of the people have access to internet and social media. Technology development has paved the way of accessibility to internet, we use small communication devices for accessing social networks anytime and anywhere. Nowadays people can buy these developed smart devices in very cheap prices from anywhere in all part of the country. Environmental awareness is one of the pre-essentials for environmental perspective and behavioural change in caring for the natural environment in the face of impending climate change and global warming. And education plays a very vital role in term of outreaching environmental awareness to students. Schools, universities and other academic centres are playing an active role in spreading environmental awareness among the students and it all happens when we have updated our academic centres with technology and the internet.
We must admit that educating our future generations can help to rebuild our environment and make it a sustainable environment for their own living in the future, once we educate them then they will do the rest of the work which is the term of act on what they have learned. One of the most positive aspects of social media is an aspect of education that about 4, 5% of people using social media this way for increasing their learnings and general knowledge. So now we can say social media is an educational tool as well. Hence social media could be further harnessed for the benefit of the natural environment. However, the role of social media to communicate the idea of environmental awareness is not well understood. Lots of organizations and environment activists have blogs and pages aiming to promote and increase the knowledge of environmental awareness vis-à-vis social media. Especially there are lots of pages on Facebook which aims to conserve the environment, nature and wildlife.
Some of the pages are as follows:
- UN Environment
- National Geographic
- World Wildlife Fund
- Friends of the earth
In Afghanistan they are as following:
- National Environment protection agency
- UN Environment Afghanistan
- Wildlife conservation society (WCS)
Nowadays many users of social media to share real-time videos or photos on various environmental issues such as illegal poaching and trading, polluting Air and water and littering wastes in any part of the city. This results in the awareness and arisen attention among help groups and common people and especially the government to take immediate action. Social media thus helps in inspiring environment activism with the help of messages such as slogans, videos, stories and photos on responsible behaviours.
Social media helps in providing momentum to spread awareness and knowledge on these issues. Social media has the potential to reach a wide range of people and may act as an effective tool for encouraging and motivating users to develop environment-friendly attitudes and participate in environment-friendly activities. Social media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook prove very beneficial tool to access users mind for spreading environmental awareness.
Right now many organizations even the government are also using social media platforms to spread awareness regarding environmental issues. In the end, we must admit that there is a strong connection between social media and change in environment issue awareness level. Social media is serving as a powerful media tool to spread awareness regarding environmental issues among its users. So from now we all should take a pledge and promise to ourselves that we use social media in its positive aspects, especially think it a green tool to save environment, nature and wildlife.
REFERENCES:
1 – F.R. & Tsarenko, 2013, “Is being green a determinant of participation” International journal of sustainability in higher education, Vol.14, No.3
2 - The role of social media on environmental awareness, Mariwan Rahim – 2016
3 – www.darivoa.com, 18/08/2019, 12:16 PM
4 – www.mcit.gov.af, 17/08/2019, 10:29 AM
5 – www.insidehighered.com, 15/08/2019, 11:15 PM