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With the ease of access to technology, everyone has digital devices and their use is almost integral to everyday life. Students spend large amounts of time on these devices for various purposes whether it may be entertainment, socializing, or even education. This can be considered as digital citizenship wherein they are citizens of this virtual society, where they have to adhere to the rules and regulations. This is very helpful to our society as it helps students gain more support and information, but this is not enough.
Though we should teach young students to be self-sufficient, we should also be helping them become people who help others. Creating altruistic adults has to start at a young age, where they are taught the right way they can help their community and raise their voice for those in need. We do not want them to passive citizens who watch things go by but rather work towards creating a better life for everyone.
This requirement for students’ calls for Digital Leadership, which requires them to take charge of a situation and voice concerns, participate in issues, and generally take part in any way that may benefit the community. This should be done for different purposes which pose a social problem such as the concern for the environment, the poor, for charities, and any other problem that can actually be handled.
Help for these causes can be done by gaining supporters through social media who can give financial and physical support, raising awareness in different communities, sharing relevant and prudent information, and even by gaining information that can provide insight into a problem. What the students need to be taught is how to differentiate between causes that are important and those that are just a hoax, how to research on topics and gain proper facts and how to stop the spreading of fake news. All these can be taught to them with the support from teachers and parents.
The main cause of this issue is that many of today’s’ students don’t actively participate in events, even those that are of direct concern to them. We need to generate a feeling of involvement in them that will propel them to take interest in causes that they can make a change in.