Innovative ways to help youth

We are just over halfway into Youth Month, a time of the year when the national focus shifts to young South Africans. They are citizens who are under immense political and financial pressure.

As if deciding which devil to vote for (the one they know or one that they will know via a coalition) and coming up with innovative ways of generating an income in one of the most volatile economies in the world is not enough, they also have societal pressure.

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Young people today have the InterWeb, a constant feature in their lives that can either make their formative years easier or be completely destructive.

Look at the increasing cases of body dysmorphic disorder, as an example. This is a mental health condition in which one can’t stop thinking about perceived defects or flaws in their appearance – flaws that appear minor or can’t even be seen by others.

Young people feel so embarrassed and ashamed that some even avoid social situations. As the older generation – who refer to the information superhighway as the InterWeb – we have to help the young ones realise that to be human is to be flawed and it is okay, no matter what they see on Facebook and Twitter.

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At the risk of sounding like my 76-year-old father, today’s youth is allowing the World Wide Web and social media apps such as Instagram, SnapChat and Pinterest to exert an incredible amount of societal pressure on them.

This is just so that they can get the validation of strangers. Surely we want to be producing young South Africans who are not only proud of their achievements and positive traits, but also their shortcomings?

No wonder Norway – rated seventh in the World Happiness Report – passed a law that forces marketing campaigns (including much loved and loathed influencers) to disclose whether a photo they used has been retouched.

Of course, detractors will say such laws never help, but remember in the ’90s when tobacco companies were banned from advertising and sponsoring major events?

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According to the World Health Organisation, countries that banned tobacco advertisements showed an average of 10% reduction in tobacco consumption … only for young people to discover vaping a few years later.