Youth is a dynamic part of a society that promises innovative and fresh ideas when equipped with adequate resources. Many a times in the past, the youth has helped advocate and spread an idea while pushing boundaries of a social construct to rattle the social limitations that restrain people of a particular society from achieving liberation. A common debate being that as one gets older they are more prone to stick to dogmatic principles that suited a cause at a particular time while a youthful mind, especially if the later comes from a more disadvantaged social end, tends to question those principles and emphasises on evolving to a better future. They pursue means that question the core idea of those principles and when they are not provided with a suitable and reasonable answer they are quick to reject it altogether.

Youth is a powerful and energetic body that has the potential to bring about a great magnitude of change and are a major part of a society. But seldom do their efforts seem to be recognized. Social media has provided younger minds with a platform to represent themselves and their unfiltered opinions. They feel empowered as their voices are heard far and wide and new debates open up regarding issues that are close to their heart.

While majority of the people drop their heads in submission to what seems unchallengeable, youngsters driven by hope surface with an opposition. In particular cases such as observed in the Arab Spring revolution in 2010 and the more recent ‘March for Our Lives’ movement, one can easily point out the instrumental role that youth plays by means of social media that is accessible to anyone and everyone. They create awareness and generate a ripple effect that resonates rebellion against the unjust.

Their stance is simple, address the needs of the public, especially the youth and provide them with their due rights. Movements of such sort build confidence in youngsters that establishes the fact that youth can contribute a major part to the political scenarios. It urges them to be more responsible with their votes and decisions and pushes them to walk out of their comfort zones and contemplate on issues such as those related to health, environment, society, education and oppression.

It makes one ponder upon the question that whether the impact of youth participation is really of that magnitude or not.

Looking back at history, momentous events took place due to people with revolutionary minds and ideas which not only triggered others to think alike but set stepping stones for them to follow. The Pakistan Movement became successful due to the efforts of men with wisdom and experience yet coincidently major players of this movement received their education and political nurturing at the onset of their youth.

With a firm mindset that they had established at that time they were then able to move boulders in future. Nowadays a common pattern that is easily noticed is that while most conventional politicians are indulged with their own political campaigns and strong images that they must enforce, youngsters have developed millions of charity sites through social media and created awareness about issues which the mainstream media fails to cover.

Youth has brought the trend of being woke promoting ideas such as representation matters and youngsters are more open to it. What the society understands as weaknesses and setbacks of the monotonous routine life is considered to be the strength of the system by these young minds.

Where social media has provided benefit to youth in terms of expression and exposure, it has also brought light upon concerning elements of our society. As an idea circulates and becomes a trend, more youngsters tend to follow it without much thought. Tactfully worded speeches that spark rebellion fuels up emotions of these young minds and while providing them with a false sense of liberty subdue them to fight for a cause that might perhaps not even benefit them after all.

Thoughts are controlled and thinking patterns are deliberately created by exposing youth through their screens to information that supports a particular idea. Young people are unapologetic and passionate about what they believe in. Energy drives through them as they feel they can topple the system with their concept of what justice and freedom looks like and that their understanding of the world is by large the way to a prosperous future where opportunities is as common as daylight.

But in their overwhelming perception they fail to realize how vulnerable they truly are and hence fall prey to manipulation by exploiters that dictate the zeal of these young minds in to something they could profit from. A pathway and guideline is set by adults who seek to subdue the larger chunk of population.

This situation was quiet apparent in the elections held in different parts of the world in the 21th century, which saw a paradigm shift as younger people were eager to vote and felt responsible to elect their own leaders. Yet somehow the people they so ferociously believed in and understood them as symbols of change and hope, turned out quite the opposite or at least in terms of practising their manifesto.

Therefore, one can easily deduce that although youth deserves representation and has the tendency to develop in-depth analysis of contemporary issues to create out of the box strategies to meet them, psychographics tend to target minds of youngsters and as a result they are most vulnerable to charismatic exploiters with ulterior motives.

The best solution for this is to educate the youth with the knowledge that wisdom and an analytical approach comes with maturity, the combination of which creates a platform for better political understanding to ensure maximum youth activism generating innovative ideas for a better future.