March 20, 2019: CODE PAKISTAN held a preliminary meeting with NED University for implementing an action plan regarding constructive use of social media today. The action plan jointly envisioned by NED University and CODE PAKISTAN aims to nudge university students toward better use of social media that is also reflected in social behavior.
The action plan is envisioned keeping in view the fact that since youth is always following new trends and technological developments, it has changed the dynamics of society. The youth in Pakistan is not only thoroughly familiar with the use of internet and social media but also spend a lot of time on them. Lack of direct monitoring of social media activity on the part of the youth makes them vulnerable to mentally damaging content. Moreover, the lack of direct contact among the users of social media gives them a sense of seclusion from the consequences of their actions. This mistaken sense makes them susceptible to giving extreme and at times hostile views on social media. This also leads to a greater level of online intolerance. Such online behavior also tends to translate into offline negative social behavior, such as spending most of the time among isolated groups of likeminded students and intolerance toward dissent.
Therefore, the envisioned action plan would identify what falls under the domain of online extremism, explore the causes of extremist behavior, design key improvement indicators for measuring the level of online extremism, find ways to nudge students toward a better use of social media and conduct a pilot study, and to design a set of policy tools to recommend for implementation at broader level.
The CODE PAKISTAN team visiting the NED University comprised of Founder CODE PAKISTAN Mr. Dilawar Khan, Senior Advisor CODE PAKISTAN Mr. Mohsin Ali Turk, and Director Programs CODE PAKISTAN Ms. Saba Imran. CODE PAKISTAN thanks the NED University for warmly receiving team CODE PAKISTAN and for putting in a joint effort with CODE PAKISTAN to work for a common cause.