PUKAR: Impact of online spaces on the emotional wellbeing of youth studying at G.N. Khalsa College

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Acknowledgement A special thanks to our facilitator Neetu Singh for being with us through the thick and thin of the fellowship and guiding us personally through the ups and downs of the fellowship and our mentor Salman Khan who gave his valuable inputs in every meeting we had and made sure the group dynamics remains vibrant.

Past 11 months has been a wonderful experience for us in our academic life and our personal lives as our dear PUKAR team has inculcated values and ethics in that worth living by, they have taught us how to critically think about issues of our times and hence because of their guidance we have been able to embark on this journey with ease and successfully completed it.

We want to thank our college - Guru Nanak Khalsa College to give us this opportunity to explore beyond college and academics. We want to thank Dr Siby Abraham ,Dr Manoj Mishra and Department of Statistics to help us balance college and fellowship. We want to thank Dr Durga Pawar and Dr Sneha Bhande to push us into pursuing this opportunity.

We would like to thank our college teachers and students who gave their precious time in contributing to our research paper.

Lastly we want to thank our families who were always there for us and without whom we would not be here.

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Table of content Acknowledgement

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Table of content

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I. Introduction

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II. Literature review

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III. Research Methodology

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IV. What’s on youth’s Mind? (Analysis)

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Role of Online Spaces in youth’s Lives

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What are online spaces ?

2) Usage and preferences

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Uses

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a) Whatsapp:

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b) Facebook:

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c) Instagram

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d) YouTube, Netflix and Streaming content

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Preference:

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3) The new age Connectivity

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Person to person connection

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Connection with society

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4) Impact and trend of online spaces on youth

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1. Impact on identity and individuality

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2 Impact on day to day life

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3. Impact on society

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4. Impact on privacy

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6. Impact on classroom culture

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7. Impact on political views

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8. Impact on academics

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9. Impact on emotions

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Overall impact

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Influence

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V. Research findings

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VI. Conclusion

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VII. Suggestion

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VII. Our Journey

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VII. Bibliography

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IX. Annexure

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a) Annexure 1 - Consent form for teachers

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b) Annexure 2 - Consent form for students

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c) Annexure 3- Interview questionnaire for teachers

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d) Annexure 4 - Interview questionnaire for students

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e) Annexure 5 - F ​ GD Questionnaire​ for students

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I. Introduction The last 6 years has been subjected to a fundamental change in the society with exposure to technology and boom of internet and cheap broadband and network services. Today, almost everyone is connected to the internet. Even children can be found engrossed in their own mobiles, laptops, tablets, etc. and most of the youth nowadays have their own cell phones. So it’s no wonder why the Internet have immensely woven itself in the lives of people, relying on the internet for many things such as socialization, study, entertainment, and current events.

For youth, spending a lot of time on the internet can do more harm than good. The internet really affects youth both negatively and positively. While the internet can be a reliable resource to help them with homework and school project, things can easily turn downhill when time on the internet overtakes time for study and school. Face to face social skills are not exercised. At this stage of youth’ life, they are learning about the world around them. While the internet is supposed to bring people together, the fact that people only talk online instead of making an effort to meet each other is sending wrong messages to youth and children. The internet affects youth by depriving them of face-to-face, genuine communications. Time is spent on the internet instead of studying. There’s what is called nonessential internet use, when people tend to aimlessly surf the internet for information that they can’t even retain or remember after hours in a session. That’s what youth do as well. The time in front of the computer is like being sucked in a black hole and this time would’ve been better spent doing more worthwhile. But if the same intensity is used to navigate productive things that help youth’ minds and skills.

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As a students of pure science online spaces plays important roles in our studies. Be it video streaming apps like YouTube for better understanding of concepts or WhatsApp for exchanging the PDF files of books or pictures of the notes.

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II. Literature review Online spaces has grown tremendously in the last few years. The popularity rate in youth is unexpectedly very high. Especially Facebook and Twitter have grown much faster and captured millions of users in just a few years. The way technology is growing, it is obvious that more and more people are going to grasp its benefits. It has brought a lot of advantages for the society. From progressed nations to under-developed countries, every nation is utilizing the power of online spaces to enhance life and use it for the betterment of the people.

However, on the other hand it has also affected the society in the negative way. Just like anything which can be used for both good and bad, online spaces have also provided the negative and positive ways for the people. It is all about the usage and getting things done positively by using the power of online spaces, it is in the hands of the user to use to its advantage. But willingly or unwillingly it can still have negative impacts on the users.

Youth relation with online space: The extensive use of online space in India has been on the rise among the new generation youths. In today's world, life cannot be imagined without Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts and online handles. The new age social networking culture has been well accepted and has met an enthusiastic response and acceptance. From today's youth life, social media cannot be minimized.

Social media comprises Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and more are used by youth worldwide.

Online spaces has influenced youth in many ways. Mobile messenger, WhatsApp has current approximately 1.5 billion active users and it is one of the most popular mobile social apps worldwide. (statista 2013-2017).

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Number of monthly active WhatsApp users worldwide from April 2013 to December 2017 (in millions).

India claimed the first place with 270 million users, ahead of second-ranked United States with 240 million Facebook users (statista 2018).

A 95 percent of the teens, aged between 13 and 17 years, access the internet while 76 percent of minors, below the age of 13, use YouTube daily. A new survey released says that Social media networking sites are used by 81 per cent of the teenagers while 72 percent of them log into social media more than once daily, the survey

by Ascham said.

Of these, 65 percent of the kids aged below 13 used social media sites and 76 per cent of the children below 13 have a YouTube account, and 51 percent of them also have a Smartphone.(news 18) In a recent survey done by Netflix, Indians are the second-highest public bingers in the world (88%), just behind Mexico (89%). (news 18)

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Reason for using online spaces: O ​ nline spaces play an important role in day to day life. Every individual use online space for some of the reasons either be entertainment, connectivity or business purposes, etc.

Online space give instantaneous result and is very quick it has been observed that youth from all over the country uses online space utmost. The whole world is open for one, if one is a part of online spaces.

Following would be the reason using online space: 1) Connectivity: Online space made easy to connect with the individuals and also from the outside world.

2)Education: Online space is very easy for access in terms of education students can easily get the solution for the problem via experts professionals etc.

3)Awareness: People get aware of the society and also from the outside world via online spaces through news feeds etc.

The Other reasons maybe getting adequate information which may be reliable, business purposes, promotion of sales market, etc.

“Social media can help people show themselves and their talents to the world in a way that has never been possible before,” Korsos said. Social media has forever changed teens’ lives, making them more connected, Booth said (Jan 2016 HuffPost) “Everything you want you can have instantaneously. Everything you want, instant gratification, except job satisfaction and strength of relationships - their ain’t no out for that. They are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes. And so millennials are wonderful, idealistic, hard working smart kids who’ve just graduated school and are in their entry-level jobs and when asked “how’s it going?” they say “I think I’m going to quit”​( Simon Sinek’s

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book “Start with why’’ 2009)

Connectivity: T ​ he beginning of online spaces made easy for the individual to get connected easily. The rise of online spaces has granted more opportunities to meet new people and begin relationships. People of different communities can connect to discuss and share related stuffs. Connectivity helps into maintaining the long distance relationships. One can easily connect with anyone from anywhere but today’s youth is most involved in the online spaces to connect. Nearby individuals are also connected via online spaces rather than face to face connection. Connectivity increases as a result privacy also increases which lead to harden the relationship with the loving ones. Individuals may use online space to convey their emotions but now it seems to disconnect from real world or surrounding.

“Social media often detracts from face-to-face communication. I think it definitely makes in-person relationships harder because of people’s attention given to their phones or devices instead of their boyfriend or girlfriend. Beyond diminishing a couple’s time spent together, some think there’s a greater possibility for things to get lost in translation over social media.” (Elly Cooper, 2016, HuffPost) “You also lose a more personable experience because if half of your relationship is over social media, you don’t really know how the other person is reacting, and it may not feel as intimate as other relationships.”

(HuffPost) With this accessibility, teens are able to generate relationships with anyone, regardless of location.

“I can feel close to someone that I’m talking to via FaceTime. I can be miles away from someone and feel like they’re in the room. Social media has made this virtual intimacy a reality.” (Kaplan, 2016, HuffPost) While social media has made it possible for some teens to grow closer together, it can also cause problems in

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the event of a breakup. In an article a person’s ex had an anonymous Twitter account that she used to share the details of their breakup with her followers. That person said he didn’t know about the account until a friend showed him. “Relationships are supposed to be personal and the problems that occur in the relationships don’t need to be broadcasted to everyone.” (St.Charlie, HuffPost 2016) The boom of online streaming and demand of content because increase of Binge Watching in millennials has opened doors for content from all across the world with different genres and different culture with increase in anime shows and increasing sales of Manga comics. At the same time their is an increase in ticket sales of hollywood movies in India. Korean music Kpop and Korean Drama are getting increasing views from India.

“The popularity of anime and manga is increasing recently which is quite a favorable thing for anime to deepen its roots in Indian market. Channels like Animax have been popular since a long time and many book stores too have started selling manga. Events like Cool Japan Festival and Mumbai Comic Con are being conducted in Mumbai which offer a good platform to the anime producers and sellers,” said Mr. Ito, Consul-General of Japan in Mumbai “I have heard that there have been different anime groups in Mumbai, Calcutta etc. People gather and watch anime, plan different programs, share the information on social media.”1

Impact: O ​ nline space seem to be a cool new set which connects us with the individual and also with outside world. It has greatly impacted on the youth, kids and senior citizens. It is a way to express love and entertain themselves. It has impacted youth greatly as it helps in motivating and encouraging an individual to perform and learn better. Youth is greatly connected with online space as it provides huge information which is a great mean to acquire national and global attention towards a social cause. Learning is also made easy due to online space. It grants right of expression which is a basic right of every person. It is very helpful in this way or either

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http://www.freepressjournal.in/featured-blog/the-rules-of-anime-and-manga-in-indian-market/955119

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way online space too have a negative impact on youth or an individual. Now a days youth are attracted to unwanted contents. This unwanted content doesn’t have any warning or limit due to which youth follow such unwanted contents. Hacking and security issues are the two main reason which has affected the youth’s life. It distracts the life and the way of behaviour towards other.

According to a report published by PewCenter.org most of the children have become victims of the cyberbullying in past.

There are 5 sites which today’s youth always use these sites are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, twitter,snapchat,whatsapp. These app has net positive and net negative effect on youth.(lokmat.com) The rise of online spaces has granted more opportunities to meet new people and begin relationships, but it also has changed the way teens view themselves and compare each other. (huffingtonpost) Negative posts or comments also can do great damage to a teen’s self-esteem. According to a Livescience Health study, about 23 percent of teens report being targeted in some means over social media. (huffingtonpost) “I’ve seen social media lowering a teenager’s self-esteem,” adolescent therapist Kathy Catenacci said, “They can’t escape the constant barrage of negative posts, how they should look, dress and act without being able to escape it for very long.” (huffingtonpost) Social media addiction is more serious than alcohol and cigarette. (huffington post) Even though social media can be a scary place for younger people, it can also be beneficial. There are countless educational websites that youth can take advantage of and use to get the help that they need in their academics. There is no doubt that the internet can either have a positive or negative effect in our lives and the lives of the children. People especially the young, are often too open to public with personal information when online and that can have a negative effect in our lives .(McGillivray N., 2015)

Influence: Today’s youth live social life which influence them either in a positive or negative way, depending on the personal perspective.

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14 year old boy from Mumbai was doing stunts on a running train which caused his death. These types of stunts are performed by the teenagers because of the successful stunts made and shared over the social media (2013). One of the disadvantages of the online spaces is that people start to follow others who are wealthy or drug addicted and share their views and videos on the web, which eventually inspires others to follow the same and get addicted to the drugs and alcohol. (Teen Vogue) A new study shows that YouTube actually positively influenced the lives of young millennials. 62% of people ages 13-24 go on social media just because it makes them feel good. Take Erica fernandes, for example a 23 year old YouTube star has over 4.6 lakhs subscribers, and you can bet that when she recommends a new type of mascara or lipstick, her followers are more than willing to go out and try it out.

Generation to Generation Perspective:

​According to previous decade, there was a fun and emotions attached in waiting for letters or news to come from their loving ones. They waited for longer period to talk to their loved ones but now due to online spaces messages are sent within a fraction of second. Today we can communicate with people who are far away from us which is possible only due to online spaces. But they say the emotions or feelings which was attached in the olden days, today those same emotions can be interpreted in many ways. As technology is rising, people are able to cope up with such changes but people do remember their olden days but get adapted to this technology. Since technology has both positive and negative sides as well and humans are getting adapted to it.

People entering college next year, social media will be ubiquitous—next year’s freshman class will have largely been born in 2000. They will not remember a world without YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. They’re

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certainly more ‘plugged in’ than earlier generations because that’s the world they grew up in. As a result of this ubiquity, teens have seen a monumental shift in nearly all faces of adolescent life. And in 60 years, when a new form of communication technology comes out, people who are teens today may look at each other and think about how much better it was when people were texting and sending emojis back in 2016. (PAUL BOOTH, HuffPost)

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III. Research Methodology Topic: Impact of online space on youth of Khalsa College The main objectives are : ● To study the New Normal for youth. ● To study the Connectivity for youth. ● Impact of Online spaces on youth.

Method of Data collection ● Sample: 30 youth (age 18-24 yrs) ● Sample size: 30 interviews, 2 FGDs, 5 experts ● Tools for Data Analysis : 1. Interview: 30 youth age limit (18-24)yrs 2. Expert interview :5 HODs 3. Focused group discussion : 2 groups (Girls and Boys) ● Location :Khalsa college Methods for data collection which we have chosen to achieve our objectives are Interviews and Focus group discussion. One to one interview with youth was carried out. FGD was conducted within a group of youth that consisted of both girls and boys. The reason behind taking FGD was that we just wanted to know the opinion of the youth so that we can compare these opinions with the individual interviews to get to know about how youth express themselves in a group and individually. Expert interviews was also conducted to

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know about the generation gap i.e. the difference between previous generation and today’s generation and also to the reflection of Online space on classroom culture. Individual interview was taken in order to know the perspective of the youth about online spaces. FGD also makes youth to think in direction towards online spaces. We have chosen the age limit of 18-24 yrs as we are also from same age group so it was easy to relate our thoughts (microbots) with our respondents and to get in touch with them as we are studying with them and surrounded by them. We have also chosen Khalsa college under our study as because we are also from same college and other reason is that our college provides internet connection for educational purposes but the youth uses it for entertainment purposes and some also use it for study purpose. Our interview was semi- structured and had open ended question. We had done 30 interview, 2 FGDs and 5 expert interviews.

Ethics ● While taking interview we had given them consent forms and asked them to sign it. ● We also took permission for doing audio recording. ● It was made sure that their identity would be kept confidential. ● Every interview data used in the report had been collected with informed consent from the respondents. ● No data manipulation was carried out. ● Introduction was given. ● ​ ​No suggestions were given. ● ​No promises were made. ● ​There was no language barrier.

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● ​Everyone was polite and humble with the respondents.

Limitations : ● ​Just the college going youth. ● ​Youth between 18-23 years old. ● ​All the colleges won’t be covered. ● ​ Colleges will be from urban, suburban mumbai.

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IV. What’s on youth’s Mind? (Analysis) The process of analysis of the primary data was classified into 5 categories so the data would show diversification and the themes of the research topic would come across as comprehensive as possible. The themes of the research are quite evident in our questionnaire as we tried to be very objective with our topics as the topic was vast in nature and we acquired a substantial amount of data on each and every theme. The analysis that was made with the help of data acquired was grouped into following chapter: 1. Role of online spaces in day to day lives.

2. Usage and preferences and new norms.

3. The new age Connectivity.

4. Impact and trend of online spaces on youth.

1) Role of Online Spaces in youth’s Lives In order to understand what is the role of online spaces let us first understand what these online spaces consist of.

a) What are online spaces ?

Online spaces are online platforms which we use to communicate, interact with each other and explore new content. Online spaces consist of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc, messaging apps such as Whatsapp, Hike etc, Over the top content providers such as hotstar, voot, netflix etc and content streaming such as YouTube, Dailymotion etc.

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Over the years the expansion and advancement of telecommunication services, introduction of internet and improvement of technology has made the world more accessible to each other. As we communicate with each other at the click of a button, access and process information that can make billions of books and analyse it, make transactions worth lakhs and crores and run businesses without having to purchase or rent an office, the internet treats everyone as equal irrespective of age, sex, religion, regional, cultural or social background. It is truly man’s creation of an equal platform after centuries of disparity.

As we asked our respondents about the role of online spaces in their day to day lives the most common answers were as follows: ● Helps us connect to our friends and family. ● Provides platform to show individuals to the world. ● Access to wide range of information. ● Influences individuals. ● Online spaces play very important role in youth’s lives.

Hence it is important to understand how do youth use it in order to understand its implication and impact at the same time to understand what they prefer to use more and less to understand the mindset behind it.

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2) Usage and preferences Youth use online spaces in different ways but there is a traceable pattern. The average usage of internet till 2015 was 2 hrs 15 min or 10-19 hrs a week2. But according to our data youth use online spaces from 4 hr a day to 12 hours a day. The data we collected is very high compared to that of world average. But as we compared it with 2017 average it is on per with our data as millennials spend 223 mins (3 and half hour approx) a day on online spaces3. In below data we have probed what do millennials use spaces for and how long do they spend their time on it, their habits and preferences of the different online platforms.

Usage of apps : Y ​ outh uses lot of apps for communication. Major apps are as follows. ● Uses a) Whatsapp: Whatsapp is the most used app in our country and our data does not deviate from that. As a matter of fact it is the most checked app on the phone. ​Getting bought by Facebook hasn’t done anything to harm WhatsApp’s popularity. The instant messaging client has more than 1.5 million active users now.​ (MUO site).

Youth keeps on jumping from one online space to another. As one of our respondents put forth it as-​ “​हर पाँच मनट म check ​करती हु म, कसी का message ​आया है या।”

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https://www.statista.com/statistics/267518/weekly-internet-usage-worldwide/

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https://www.statista.com/statistics/736727/worldwide-teen-average-online-time-devices/

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The instant reply in real time and medium to have a conversation and easy flow of multimedia and free access are some of the perks that the app provides. Received from our data-​“ Important message होगा तो ज द send कर सकते ह”

Like by using some of the online spaces one gets lot of unnecessary advertisements which distracts them from their intended activities. Whereas in social media apps like WhatsApp has no such advertisements. Few respondents said that-​“W ​ hatsApp पे बाक फालतू advertise नह आते ह” WhatsApp messages are also delivered within split seconds so that is very convenient. Our respondents said that- “ ​Within a second म ​ ुझे सामने वाले इंसान से या बात करनी वह मेर बात उस तक पहुंच जाती है ” At the same time there is a dependency on the app as it has become a primary platform to connect with your friends, family, colleagues because everyone is on it. Few respondent said that-​“I stay far away from my friends so i use whatsapp to contact them” While some said that-​“ Whatsapp messenger keep me connected with family and loved ones.”

The fact that everyone is on it has a lot to do with usage of the app as subject (even if they wanted to) could not afford not to be on whatsapp as the app has become a college notice board, teacher’s classroom, college canteen, college staffroom, project group, family function and your all at the same time. This is where a teacher announces or cancels the last minute, gives pending notes or share videos that could be used for the succeeding lecture or help understanding the concept better.

Whatsapp in youth is mostly used for study purposes. It is also efficient in order to avoid unwanted people or anonymous people to text you. ​Youth uses lot of online spaces. Instagram takes lot of internet data whereas WhatsApp works in less Mb of internet data which is suitable for their pocket money. As one of our

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respondent said “​Whatsapp पे जो communication होता है college का that comes on first, second 2G नेट पर चलता है

तो उसको कम लगता है नेट” As compared to Facebook girls feel especially safe to use Whatsapp more because of privacy issues as one of our respondent said that-​“WhatsApp पे बहुत सार privacy है मतलब my contact रहता है nobody रहता है everybody रहता

है ”

b) Facebook:

After Orkut, Facebook has been the most popular social media app for communication and sharing

pictures or videos with the closed ones and with the outside world too. One of the dominating use of Facebook was mostly for news feed. News feed consist of pages which we follow, the persons whom we have added whatever they post on their page, their status, informative pages, etc some of the pages like laughing colours,maharashtrian memes, filmygyan, FSSAI, the biotech guy, microbiology notes and so on.

These pages explore jokes, trolling, sharing of information,etc. As one of the respondent said-​बहुत अलग

अलग तरह के होती है म बहुत सारे pages like क है जैसे India times है और Times of India है , laughing colours है उसे पे आपको jokes youth आते है और कुछ recent हुआ है तो उस क information भ provide करते है तो वोह भ है और जैसे का फ़ हमारा fssai का एक वो है website है या page होते है तो वो भ दे खती रहती हूँ और अलग अलग तरह के combo है यह पुरा तो इस लए”.

On facebook comes various types of notification i.e. your friend mentioned you in the post then the observer person clicks on that notification and then sees that his friend mentioned in such a post due to which his mood will change then he will reply to his comment and this activity is continued.

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Like these other types of jokes in which they tag their friends, and the activities gives happiness to them, helps them to maintain their relationships some said that new relations are formed. ​Also one get notified by Facebook about their friends birthdays which helps them to maintain their friendship and relationship.

One of the most excited responses we got was​“Memes! Facebook has some hilarious facebook, as I’ve become addicted to memes”.​Memes have become a fundamental part of social media. You can find the same all over the internet in every social media platform that exist. These are majorly jokes and can be easily found on any fandoms. It is one of the most efficient ways to put across your views, message, criticism, etc. It’s a freedom of speech in a sarcastic form. As one of the respondent said- “​Facebook भड़ास नकालने के लए

होती है कुछ भी कभी बुरा होता तो” Youth organize a lot of events via facebook which helps them promote there college fests, get togethers, reunions, trekking adventures, etc.

Another respondent told us how Facebook helps the community around them as -“​There are a lot of pages that spread goodwill and cheer so it feels nice to read them such as Humans of Bombay, People are awesome, Kyoot etc.” ​Humans of Bombay is a team of storytellers that concentrate on the journey of individuals, showing our followers that each and every person is unique, inspirational, and relatable,4 which further explains the instruments that make Facebook most used app in the world.

c) Instagram Instagram is a most popular app in youth nowadays. And our data doesn’t deviate from that as our data says youth prefer Instagram after Whatsapp because visual content

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http://www.humansofbombay.in/

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dominates the screen of the youth. Youth don't really want to read the text but likes to scroll down the images which is more reliable. Everyone in the world is fluent in photos and videos and it allows to get digitally connected. People also express their feelings by visual content. It serves a place where youth go to discover what's new, what's next, what their friends doing etc. Instagram also provides instant connection of the individual to world via videos, photos, and also to capture the rapidity of the moments. As one of our respondent says,​“हां जैसे क मे fashion industry मुझे बहोत interest है Instagram के वजह से

मुझे बहोत सारा उसंमे से पता चलता है क कहा show हो रहा है ? या नया है वो सब पता चलता है ” Instagram helps in discovering new interest, following passion, professional, and hobbies and getting deeper into communities is simple on instagram. As our respondent says-​“ज ​ ो

मेरे friends जो buisness करते है उनको follow करता हूँ तो मेरा फ़ायदा होता है ” It helps in individual to give a platform to express their talent to the world which is important for self discovery or uncovering the talent and also gets idea for innovating new things. Today's youth and adults uses instagram very frequently that they fall asleep thinking about it. They use the app before sleeping and also access the platform vigorously what they missed while they were disconnected for some of the other reason. It also helps in changing the mood and getting updates about the world. As one of the respondent say​“​मुझे 10th से ह fashion industry म जाना था पर मुझे इतना पता नह ं था पहले तो जैसे मने और find out क ​ रना शु

कया उनके accounts​ पर जाना शु

interest​ और यादा बढ़ गया उसके वजह से”

कया तो उनके बारे म और यादा पता चला , फर मेरा

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One of the other reason for using instagram as our data says​ “​हमारे relatives रहते है दस ु रे app ले कन Instagram पर mostly नह रहते है ” that their are no relatives on instagram to keep an eye on them .

Brands attracts the youth regularly whether by looking at photos, liking contents, following accounts or visiting a account. Due to online space youth are open to new forms. It also offers a quality experience. As the respondents says ​“I do believe​ इन feminism ज ​ ो म insta ​पर जो post dekhti​ हो feminist क ​ ा जो दे खती हूँ,I know what is happening around the world more अ ​ छे से” Youth are able to discover their own interest what they want to do.It also enables the youth to fulfil their dream.

It also helps youth to find their way for success. As our respondent says, “​ I saw Ice skating game on Instagram and I loved it. It’s like my childhood dream to become the ice skater like him and unfortunately in India there are no ice skating. North India they have 1 or 2 soo I just feel sometimes bad that I can’t be a figure skater so it’s like it hurts then I say it’s fine”

d) YouTube, Netflix and Streaming content YouTube along with instagram is one of the most binged app and can also be called TV of youth. The uproar of streaming content among younger generation sends a clear message - WE WILL WATCH WHAT WE WANT, WHEN WE WANT TO AND HOWEVER WE WISH TO. YouTube defines one of the trademarks of the Internet generation where the freedom of choice is given to the user to explore as many options of entertainment and choose the one without the constraints of time, and without investing any money and having the liberty to give instant feedback.

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So What happens on Youtube :-

Education and proliferation of knowledge Youtube has made it very easy for students to have a crash course on a certain concept or just to have a better understanding of their academic topic which they might not understand in their respective courses. The variety of content on every subject offers choice and a better, more graphic representation of pure science subjects and many more make studying more interactive as one of our respondents said,​“Chemistry के mechanism होता है जो समझ म नह आता है ऊपर से जाता है पर वो जो video म है वो समझता है उसको हम बार-बार back करके दे ख सकते है नह ं समझा वापस दे ख सकते है वापस तो उसे ये help मलता है . ok ठ क है teachers से एक बार

नह ं दस ू र बार तीसर बार बोलगे

या है but हम busy है थोड़ी दे र बाद आओ. Teachers से hesitation होती है ”

Similarly some respondents use it to motivate themselves as some of the one famous YouTube channels is Ted Talks at the same time Indian Motivational speaker Sandeep Maheshwari is quite famous among young audience. As one of our respondent said, “​ अ ​ गर exam time ​रहे तो हम लोग यादा stress​ म रहते है क , कैसे होगा तो motivational video 5 min भ ​ ी दे ख लो तो उसका impact ​ गरे गा ,5 min​ का effect 1-2 days त ​ क रहता ह है अ छे से पढ़गे” While the other respondent said --​“​खुद को चाज करने के लए motivational video ​देखो जैसे Tata,Ambani,Sandeep maheshwari

इन सब क speech स ​ ूनोगे​े तो depression ​होगा तो चला जाएगा”

e) Hobbies Youtube has massive section on lifestyle and personality videos. There are minimum of 1M views on every makeup channels that we could find. As of 2016, there were more than 5.3 million beauty videos on

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YouTube, and 86 percent of the top 200 beauty videos were made by beauty vloggers, rather than beauty brands. 5One of our respondent said that-​“ज ​ ो मुझे दे खना है क आज म party hairstyle ​कैसे बनाऊ तो म 2-3 videos द​ े खतीे हु”

Another example of using Youtube is to find excotic cooking recipies to make, as one of our respondents said that- “ ​ऐसा बहुत बार हुआ है के म कभी कबार YouTube प​ े कुछ cooking related द​ े खती हूं and ​ फर वहा से कह और चला जाता है and फर वहा से कुछ comedy show प ​ े चला जाता है and ऐ​ से कर कर समझ ह नह आता क दे खने के लए आई थी उसे छोड़के कुछ और ह दे खने लगे जाती हु जैसे क कुछ interview ​हो गया कुछ standup comedy ह ​ ो गया उसमे ह म busy ​हो जाती हुं फर 1 घ ​ टं ा वैसे ह चला जाता है कुछ समझ ह नह आता ”

Because of the feature of YouTube related videos are suggested to the youth while watching the video. This leads the youth to spend more time than they had originally planned to spend.

Platform for content makers YouTube content makers or YouTubers as they are called, are most commonly found in demographic from 18-24. Youtube is the biggest platform to expose your talent and you can launch a career if you get enough subscribers and views to monetize videos and hence youth are considering being a Youtuber as a genuine career. In India Youtubers like ‘Carryminati’ is a good example of it. As one of the respondent says “पहले music etc म बनाता था तो वो promote करने लग गया articles and but उ के likes न ह आय़ा, त भ कैसे थोडा immature भी था तो views नह ं आय़ा तो छोड़ दे ता था फर उसके बाद educational पर आया and educational वाला चल रहा है |” ​Binge Watching

5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_YouTubers

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The content most of time is consumed in the bulk as most respondents watched minimum 2-3 episodes in one sitting that is at least 2-3 hours everyday. The newest craze is to have a movie marathon or to watch the entire season in a day or two. Some respondents put it like this, “​ कभी कभी पूरा दन दे खते है जब तक ख म नह

होता है ” This is common trend among the millennials as the amount of content created is very large and they have to keep up with the trending content. Streaming OTT like hotstar, netflix have a special algorithm which rewards users with similar content or as to put it ‘You might like this’ which provides users with more content.

Millennials struggle to draw themselves out while binge watching especially if they are on YouTube as it has relatively smaller videos and have various other options of related smaller videos and they keep on clicking on smaller videos and at times they lose track of time as one respondent said, “​ 5 min music video is turn into 2 hours of time spent on cat videos, baby videos and top 10 movies you have to watch before you die”

Preference: Even though data shows that India is one of the leading country to have large amount of active users on Facebook (statista 2018) but our respondents prefer WhatsApp over Facebook. Facebook is the most used social media platform in the world as well as in India. Facebook resembled Instagram in its identity as youth’s haven with 18-28 year olds as its primary users. But it has lost credibility due to its recent issues with privacy.

Young people are turning their backs on Facebook. According to a new report two million people under the age of 25 will stop using the social network this year, research firm eMarketer predicted. Facebook has a “teen problem”, the company said, adding that it expects fewer and fewer young social media users to continue to

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use the site in the future.6 Facebook came at a time where Broadband costs were decreasing and internet was affordable and Orkut was going out of fashion. As Facebook grew, more and more people started joining the platform and as the age group widened, people from diverse social backgrounds started to join facebook. As the user base expanded, older generation and in context of young people their parents and relatives started lurking into their facebook profile. Facebook (so called youth haven) was threatened by moral policing by their family and relatives. Hence to avoid facing interrogation by their parents and relatives youth started to get off facebook to avoid major confrontation and humiliation. As one of our respondents put forth it as “​

अगर म मी को पता चलता है क म मेर कोई friend Fb पे है तो उनका 1st impression होगा क ज़ र इसका कोई Boyfriend होगा” where as the counter data got an appreciation as one of our respondents said “​ अगर आप Facebook पे नह हो तो

आपको innocent माना जाता है ” The youth who are on facebook use it to watch memes as the facebook is filled with it.

One of the respondents expressed their opinion which is a general consensus among youth​“ When I was in my schooling days then I used to use it because I personally feel Facebook is just a shit because Facebook आपको कुछ help नह करता and that is my personal experience because I have used I have to use Facebook, any person can message you then tag you in their post can send you any images any type of messages so you know that security

बहुत बहुत कम है and like आपको कसीका भी friend request आते है फर new friends बनाते है explore करते है and mindset ऐसा होता है क अब friend request आ गया थोड़ा बात कर लेते है Facebook but what happens is he is a new stranger for me and he will say Hi I will say hi and then he’ll ask how are you and i’ll reply I am fine and I

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-quit-young-people-social-media-snapchat-instagram-emarketera8206486.html 6

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don't understand when we both are strangers talking hi hello without any context it feels like a waste of time,

फलतु गर होता है ” This is one of the main reason why the youth don't like to be on facebook. Youth as liberal as they are in their opinions and their point of view are very private and conservative in choosing people they want to talk to. As Facebook, Instagram all has a different class system which is dependent on their personal views and of course their lifestyle. So to put in a hypothetical eg. if profile A is not as vibrant as profile B, A might seem less attractive compared to B and hence B would not want conversation and association with B as friends.

Instagram becomes more viable options for these social media stars because, Instagram unlike facebook doesn't have a friend list but has followers and following. So person B can have a vibrant attractive looking profile and have thousands of followers and can limit their conservation to people via comment section. Whereas facebook has a chat system where one is seen online when they come to use facebook. So if a person is on facebook to checkout a page or to just checkout newsfeed from friends profiles or to binge on memes might get a message from a person that they do not intend to converse. And Facebook has a new update which shows a person online in the comment section of a post which leads to a conversation in the comment section which is very public in nature. Hence facebook is designed in a way where people have to interact with each other if they are online. One of the respondents said, “that they just go on Facebook to checkout who’s birthday it is and then send happy birthday message on whatsapp making it seem that the person remembered the birthday”.

One of the respondent said that “​FB भड़ास नकालने के लए होता है ,कुछ भी बुरा होता है I upload, Status डाल दे ती

हूं।” This shows how easy it is to express our feeling in the most raw manner possible which sometimes just is a call for attention.

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Another reason where Facebook is not preferred as a primary source of making friends and connection is shown below as one of our respondent said “​कर सकती हू मेर एक friend है 3 साल पहले एक लड़के से मल थी Facebook पे definitely वह unknown था फर लोग क hi hello चालू हुई धीरे धीरे बात हुई बहुत यादा उन लोग क

दो ती बड़ी , फर दो ती relationship म बदल गयी फर उसके बाद वो लोग मलने लगे एक दस ू रे से फर वो लोग अभी भी relationship मे है ले कन एक time था तो मेर friend भी बहुत hurt हुई और वो लोग अभी भी मलते है , तो एक time था

जब hurt हुई थी कुछ... मुझे कुछ exactly पता नह ं है social media पे का हुअा था post था या जो भी था ले कन online space के वजह से क हुआ था ये तो definietly है . तो मैने उसको दे खा रोते हुए तो मैने पूछा उसे तो उसने मुझे बताया क ऐसे ऐसे है तो मैने भी समझा या उसे online है मतलब लोग ऐसे ह होते है मतलब Facebook पे सब ऐसे ह fake होते है , सब ऐसे ह झूठ झूठ बोल के दल जीत लेते है ऐसे, तो वो मतलब मान गयी थी तो मैने कहा क ऐसा मत करना दोबारा, वो भी मान गयी थी उसके बाद फर उसका messages आया और वो फर बात करने लगी तो लोग का ऐसा चलता ह रहता है ” This clearly shows how facebook can’t be relied on to have important relationships as what happens beyond the platform is unknown to us. That is why teens and youth do not prefer facebook to share their reel life with their friends.

Instagram is one of the most popular app in youth since a few years now and one of the most binged app. One can say that the Instagram is an alternative to facebook as Instagram has better privacy in comparison to other social media giant Facebook. Instagram has comparatively younger users as 51 % of Indian instagram users are between 18-24 as of August 20177. Roughly instagram has 26.3 mil users which fall are below the age of 24 which accounts for 61% of users in India. Instagram can be called as youth dormroom or haven as this is where youth expose themselves as who they are or who they want to become.

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https://napoleoncat.com/blog/en/facebook-and-instagram-user-demographics-in-india-august-2017/

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But instagram marginalize some classes as youth from a conservative background cannot take advantage of this platform as one of our respondents said “​मुझे कोई फक नह ं पड़ता है likes आए या ना आए because Instagram is like you know I belong to a muslim family and there it how it is my parents don’t allow me to upload any of my photos on social media Instagram is such an app that you know you have much more security than any other App for me and she insisted me या use कर रह है कुछ नह होगा so my brother used to know I used to use Instagram so my pictures upload कर रह थी I used upload But म कभी कसी ke likes or comments के लए नह डाला because I used to know that Nokia सादा मेरे close friends ह ह तो मुझे कुछ Expectations नह होता है क ये लोग मुझे comment करगे like

करग मेरा मन कया तो म upload कया अपने खुशी के लए upload कया but not for anybody's like or comment” Whatsapp is where 11th hour doubts are solved by teachers during exams and student doesn't have to wait for the next day to travel to college to meet the respective professor. It would make little or no difference if a student does not attend the college regularly and still be updated with the day to day working on college. This is one of the major reasons why college and professors are undervalued as the access to college is on the tip of the finger, one feels that attending lectures and going to college on regular basis might be waste of time. As whatsapp provides an alternative which is easy and needs no effort on our part and doesn't effect the final pay-off. Whatsapp is also immune compared to the notice board as it has notices which are month older.

Content Preference Youth watches wide range of genres right from Japanese anime, Korean drama, Taiwanese series, Turkish series, French romantic comedy series, old Indian series etc. As they grow older youth’s tastes tend to change and youth wants to have a unique taste. They get to easily surf through variety of content on internet. As

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youth is getting more exposed to different cultures they are trying to inculcate similar lifestyle as one of our respondent said,​“हा ऐसा लगता है क FRIENDS (TV show) जैसे हम भी दो त क तरह रहे .”

3​)​​The new age Connectivity Connectivity means having a integrated relation with someone. That someone might be your loved one or the strangers as well. People communicate in order to feel the connection.

We considered two methods which people use to have a connection which are as follows: ● The connection youth feels when they communicate face to face that is having physical touch to that communication. ● And the second one is the connection youth feels when they communicate on social media apps like Facebook.

a) Person to person connection Online spaces has gained immense importance in today’s youths life. First thing today’s youth do is that is to check their social media i.e. their first instinct in the morning. That’s how much they are dependent on social media for various purposes.

Social media has changed how today’s youth communicate with people. According to the Interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), we have observed that all the respondents prefer face to face conversations over social media communication. But the same youth spends most of their time on online spaces to communicate or a better word chat with each other. Irony. Isn’t it?

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Online spaces changing youths relationship offline, according to the interviews we took, the answers of the respondents showed that physically meeting someone that is having face to face conversation is very important in relationships. But some respondents also said that they like texting because it is very comfortable and they can talk to their loved ones anytime we want even if they are continents away from them,“I have a daughter and then she was here as an in India she was on her phone all the time and we didn't talk. Whenever I told her please stop it for a while she ignored. Now she is a broad and now she called me twice everyday, she shows me places around she lives via faceTime. I feel I am more close to her now then she was living with me. So that's a benefit.”

Let's first talk about intimate relationships. As we have seen in our surrounding if a girl gets a new request from a guy, the girl would stalk his whole profile. If he has uploaded a picture with her previous girlfriend then the girl will stalk her account also. So as per our data by stalking that girl would try to know about their lifestyle and personality as. Like his interests, friends, girlfriends and this is vice versa with males. Same goes with the social media sites like facebook as well.Few respondents said that they feel that online chatting doesn’t really helps to maintain their relationship​-“मेरे हसाब से online chatting से relation ख़राब होता है और

सामने वाले का reaction नह पता चलता जो क पता चलना चा हये।” While some said -​ “Face to face मलना यादा अ छा लगता है मुझ social media के through पता नह चलती इंसान

क feeling,कुछ काम का नह है social media.”

Our respondents also said that ,​to maintain their relationship and to check the truthness of the things majority of them prefer face to face conversations.

Our respondents talked about the usage of emojis while chatting. Do they really mean those emotions which they try to convey by emojis or not. Regarding this topic our respondents opened up nicely.-​“Emojis ,वो सब

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fake emojis लगते है मुझे कभी कभी,म तो कभी believe नह करती मुझे अगर joke पर हँ सी भी आएगी न तो म गु से

वाला भेज दे ती हूं क सामने वाले को लगे क इसको कभी joke ह न भेजो” Data also shows that because of usage of emojis they can’t really trust the sender because they can’t see them in person so they really can’t decide whether someone is just flirting with them or genuinely like them. Also if the youth is conversing with unknown person on these platforms then they can’t easily determine whether the person who they are talking is really trustable or not. Whereas when the expression of feelings is in person it is more reliable for the youth.-​“मी मा या भावा सोबत होती ते हा timepass करायचा हणून एका मुल सोबत flirt

करत होता whatsapp वर ेमाचे smiley emoji ते हणतात याला ते पाठवणार या माणसाला खरं वाटणार हा क ती loyal आहे मा यासोबत , मा यासोबत relationship म ये यायचे अस ते ठरणार आ ण तु ह ते ,मग बघ ह पटल

आता मी हला फरवणार timepass करणार या गो ट whatsapp वर खूप घडतात ,आता express कोणी करतय तर I appreciate , समो न कंवा मागून कोणी express करतय तर I appreciate आपण या condition म ये असलं पा हजे क

जेणे क न एवढं आप याला या य तीला ओळखता आले पा हजे , हणजे मला मा हती आहे दै नं दन जीवनात माझं यावर ेम नाह आहे जे enemy आहे आ ण मला whatsapp वरती I love you वगेरे बोलत असेल तर या या ेमात न फसता याला block करणे.”

Our respondents said they prefer face to face conversations over online communication in order to avoid the misunderstandings. -“मझ ु े face to face ह अ छा लगता है messaging म हम लोग जो convey कर रहे है वो जो opposite person है वो कुछ और भी समझ सकते है मतलब वो कुछ और way म भी ले सकता है मतलब म अ छा बोल रह हुं मतलब कुछ और गलत मतलब नकाला तो और face to face है तो expression से भी समझ मे आ जाता है या exactly बोलना चाह रहा है ” Our data says that the youth does not feels a real connection through the communication on social media whereas some of the respondents feel the connection in offline and online connection as well. The responses of respondents were kind of ambiguous in nature. So according to the data the usage of online spaces of an

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average youth is 6-8 hours per day but at the same time they responded that they like face to face conversations. This contradiction in responses is very intriguing. What might be the reasons behind this contradiction?

“It does connects you to the world. And In few cases even to individuals. But it is on a very exterior level. It’s like momentary euphoria induced by substance abuse.”

Also some said -“There are some people who I’ve met and have hit off better than some who I know in real.”

As one of our respondent said the real value or happiness is felt when birthday wishes or festival wishes are given by meeting loved ones in person rather than texting or calling. Some of our respondents said that “In-person conversation meant a lot. Because if you wanted to wish someone you’d to meet them and wish.

Now because of whatsapp those wished mean very little. You just an image of a birthday or a festival.”

While some said -“I feel because of the convenience of texting people whenever they want it has reduced its value in terms of what we talk.”

Online spaces have extraordinarily affected our communication ways and concepts. It has moved from letters to telephones to now emails, chatting, and video calling by the means of online space. But the youth thinks the charm in relationship has been lost because of online spaces​-“The thing is क ना ठ क आहे मी social media वर

सगळया आहे पण अजूनह प start झाल ना क ं मा या समोर या माणसाला सां गतलं क मी प हणजे मला इतका छान वाटलं क प

ल हते तर मी उडी

लहायला आ ण phone वर काय रोजच बोलतो हणजे ना मला खरच नाह

आवडत आता असा मला ते realize होतंय क भावना असतात ना या आपण अ या हळूहळू उलगडत गेला ना तर यांची मजा येते आता मी एक माणसाला प

ल हलं तर मी excitement म ये emotional होऊन ल हणार या सग या

भावना मा या अ रात मा या श दांत मी ल हणार, संपणार मग वाट बघणार आता प ं जाईल ते हा प ं जाईल नंतर प ं जाईल मग तो माणूस ते प उघडणार ते वाचणार हळूहळू वाचणार मग या या डो यात हळूहळू पाणी येणार आ ण

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मग ती जे हा येणार ना भेटायला येणार ते हा तो सांगणारं क तू खूप छान ल हलंयस तू माझा तु या वरच ेम वाढलंय या सग या गो ट ंमुळे”

Even though nowadays letters have been replaced by texting youth feels a sense of losing something valuable.

They feel that there is something special about knowing that someone has taken efforts to send them that handwritten letter,​“पण the thing is आपणं whatsapp वर ना I miss you a lot , I love you a lot. हे सगळे message

पाठवतो आ ण आपण gogloe वर काय search करतो love quotes हे सगळे आपण ढापणार आ ण इथे paste करणार तु ह तुम या भावना express च नाह करत आहात हे तुमचे जे words आहे त हे तुम या दस ु या भाषेतून वापर करत आहात हे सगळं वाप न तु ह या person ला impress करायचा य न करताय पण अस प ा या बाबतीत अिजबात नाह होत यात आपण आप या मायबोल चा वापर करतो आप या वतः या भाषेचा वतः या श दांचा वापर करतो भावनांचा अिजबात खेळ न खेळता आपण ल हतो आ ण या माणसाला पण आप या भावना पोहोचतात हणजे भलेह कतीह वेळ लागेल हणजे emergency message असेल तर I'll prefer whatsapp मला लवकरात लवकर याला काह तर सांगायचयं जर मला य त हायचे आहे मला मा या भावना उलगडत जायचंय तर मी obviously प ांना choose करे न. कुठे तर ते सोयी कर आहे आ ण हणुन वापरतो असा मला वाटतं.”

Historically, today’s youth is going where no human has gone before. Like if a century ago somebody had said that in future we will be able to see our loved ones on a device who are far away from us then that person would have been called maniac. But here we are, hooked up to apps offering unprecedented exposure to the innermost thoughts and actions of others contacting our loved ones over the continents. “ दल का छोटासा ह सा बन गया है ” So this exposure has positive and negative effects on relationships in some or the other way.

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As per the data we have got, if the relationship is well established then now a days there is issues between the couples oversharing the passwords of their respective social media accounts. The male or female who is in relation will keep tab on their respective partners. Their every comment, every like will be watched upon reading between the lines has become very prominent because of these online communication. And this stalking tendencies can be seen in ‘memes’ also. Whereas on the other hand for long distance relationships the social media has became a saviour. Some relationship start from online spaces but still they prefer offline communication to maintain their relationship. But the question here is are relationships which are maintained only by online spaces are as healthy as relationships which have only face to face conversation as a means of communication.

Our data has showed that the majority of the respondents that face to face conversation is important. The data showed that physical touch, eyes communication, reading the face is important in relationship. In intimate relationships also data showed that physical intimacy is important which is not possible through online spaces.

“See if I want to kiss her I can’t kiss on skype” “I fear the day when technology will surpass human interaction” – Albert Einstein This very sentence gives the idea about how much space in our life has these online spaces occupied. Online spaces can both help and hurt real life relationships. Online spaces has given youth great opportunity to express themselves. Till what extent youth opens up about their relationship matters is up to them. Many articles stated that the lines between public and private have become quite blurry, sometimes to the point where people are willing to subject their entire relationships to public enquiry. So it’s upon us how well we use these online spaces to actually connect with our loved ones.

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Connection with society Online spaces plays important role in connecting youth with the society. Youth spends their time differently when they have internet connection on their mobile and when they don’t. As per our data online spaces are bringing changes in their daily life. Our findings can be categorized as follows:-

The connection here which we are talking about is with respect to society that is surrounding world. How they are connected with the society by the means of the activities which they are doing like scrolling, chatting, video calling, any online activity with respect to online spaces. Following diagram shows the amount of things youth does by using online spaces.

Most of them feel connected to the outside world because they get lot of information after using online spaces like sending pictures (exchanging information), college related, fashion industry, latest news, trekking updates, etc.

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By following some pages one can not only get to know about latest ongoing trends but also latest news. For example, if someone is following other countries pages so they get to know about their culture, their food dishes, their lifestyle, etc. By following scientific, intellectual, physical fitness and hobbies related pages one can know about the research related knowledge & sports related updates, creative ideas, productive stuff, etc.

The news feed plays important role to connect them with outside world which is our society-“Due to online spaces आस पास का मझ ु े बहुत यादा knowledge पता लगने लगा है as compared to before usage of online spaces”. the other respondent said-​“Cooperative world के बारे म सब कुछ online spaces पे दे खते है ”

Through online spaces not only we are connecting to the world but also with persons, what they are doing in their life, all of these we get to know just by sharing pictures, checking status, etc.one of the respondent said - “हम पहुँच नह पाते न उनसे भी connected रहते है , अ छा लगता है मतलब लोग खो नह

गये online spaces से

connected है We get to know about them” While some respondents said that it helps them to connect with their parents. As its natural tendencies of the parents to get super hyper when it comes to their child’s whereabouts- “आधी सारखी चंता नसते parents ला क माझ पोरग कुठे आहे काय करते बस १ म नटाम ये कळते ती/तो कुठे आहे ” Respondents also stated that getting information about what is happening outside in the society gets available in split seconds as abelow -“पहले बहार जाके पता चलता था या हो रहा है but अभी घर बैठे ह पता चलता है it is connection” Recently ,India faced some horrendous cases of rapes of children. These incidents were so horrifying and heartbreaking. youth stood up against these incidents and reached out to social media to express themselves. youth openly spoke about the issues plaguing the entire country.

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All the reasons which has been mentioned above are the reasons behind why they feel connected to the society through online spaces. But our data also shows that there are respondents who do not prefer means of online spaces for connecting to the society. Because they feel that this connection via online spaces is not same as physically meeting someone that implies it’s unrealistic for them. While some have said that being part of whatsapp group, giving advices and uploading inspirational thoughts on statuses that is not real connection for them. One respondent said -​“वो connection कह ं हद तक thik है जो connection अगर हम news क बात kare तो TV पर भी news दे ख सकते ह news paper म भी news पढ़ सकते है ठ क है . अगर हमार art and all दे खना है तो normal magzine आज काल चलने लगी है business daily ये साथ हम उस म दे ख सकते है ठ क है ज़ र नह ं है mobile

से ह दे खना दस ू र भी बोहत कुछ चीज़ आती है उसको buy करो दे खो” On other side few respondents said that we are connecting through online spaces to outside world but disconnecting from society so it’s not a connection. Because for them it’s virtual world with fake people.

When we asked our respondents why do they spend time on online spaces during exam period they responded with - “​ It feels mobile नह रहता तो अ छा था all clear रहती थी ,अभी मेर िजंदगी बेकार हो गई है ” Whereas some people can’t study without internet.

Some interesting responses were seen when we asked our respondents about how do they feel when there is no internet connection in their devices.

The following pie chart shows how does the youth feel when they don’t have internet connection.

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when there is no internet connection 30% of them doesn't affect in daily life ,15% of them can't live without internet ,10% of them never face such situation because they always have net connection while 25% of them affect in their daily life while 35% of youth do other real activities .

Majority doesn’t have any effect if they are not online. They do their regular activities. For them real life is important rather than online life. They communicate by physically meeting their loved ones. They spend more time doing what they love that is painting or playing, etc. They feel more peaceful when they are not connected to the internet-​“थोड़ा टाइम के लए शां त मलती है थोड़ा time like ऐसा एक relief रहता है क strain

नह होता inshort य क eyes an all पे strain होता है headache सब होता है so इस लये its better to be not on your phone” In contradiction to this some responses also showed that there is youth which cannot live without internet.

As one of the respondent said -​“If no net then recharge करवा लेती हु १ दन भी बना use करे ऐसा नह रहा जाता

ऐसा लगता है सबकुछ से connection टूट गया है ,so recharge कर लेती हु”. Data also showed that youth sleeps on it in order to avoid their feelings when they don’t have internet connection .

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As per our data, the rainbow of emotions were seen in the youth when they are not connected to the internet.

ै ी महसूस होती है ,कभी कभी सब पर गु सा They get so much angry that they feel like throwing their phone​-“ बैचन नकलती हु फर direct मल लेती हु ,कभी तो मोबाइल तोड़ने का मन करता है ”,data लगे कसी का अगर नह रहता तो गु सा आता है अगर friend के पास भी नह नह रहे गा तो उसके उपर भी गु सा आता है ऐसा लगता है रहता तो अ छा होता net चा हए तो चा हए” whereas some of the data also showed that they couldn’t live without internet but now they have no effect if they don’t have internet connection whatsoever-​“नह ं रहता तो तो लोग पागल हो जाते अरे internet नह ं है या

होगा ऐसा मेरे साथ भी पहले हुआ है ले कन अभी नह ं होता है मतलब अभी इतना नह ं सोचती नह ं है करके इंटरनेट नह ं है ना” Various research papers and articles stated that facebook,whatsapp,instagram are the apps which are mostly used in the youth but when we actually got the data we observed that they don’t feel actual connection through this but they feel connected through video calling, imo, etc. Respondents feels that in video calling we can read the face and try to figure out the emotions of the person whom we are video calling.

Whereas when we share pictures or emojis or text the person we actually can’t decide whether that information is true or not. For example for the sake of pictures or because of boredom, the person smiles but there is a possibility that person is not actually happy. The person might be sad but they might try to create different reality of theirs on online spaces-​“ दखावा बहुत लोग करते है जैसे म बताउं कोई shopping वग़ैरा भी करने

जायगे तो use करगे and बताएगा क मेरे पास hat है but actually वो लोग खर दे भी नह रहते उसे ओर hat का हो जात है और ticket का रहता मेरे पास ये ह और dressing वग़ैरा का भी होता है बहुत म घर पे ऐसे रहती हू वैसे रहती हू एकदम कभी कभी होता है ऐसे यादा करने वाले”

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Majority of the youth thinks that online spaces has become necessity as all of their regular updates, college news, trending news all can be made available using online spaces. In that way they feel connected to the society and overall global connection as well.

4)​​Impact and trend of online spaces on youth Online spaces are like double-edged swords, on the one hand, they have brought a greater exposure to the world but on the other hand, there is the dark side to, and many youths are either being harassed on it or becoming addicted to it.

1. Impact on identity and individuality “हम ये है , हम वो है मतलब सब अपनी बढ़ाई करते है और कुछ कुछ लोग ऐसे होते है क ऐसे भी नह ं और profile picture भी डाल दे ते है और कहते है क हम है ” youth feels the need to create beautiful and false reality of them on these online spaces. But it has a flip side to it because as a false reality is created, it has a real life impact on some people as the compare their real life to false. As one of our respondent said​“ऐसे तो बहुत बार लगता है क photos send करते ह upload करते कभी-कभी

बहुत अ छ photo रहती है तो सोचते ह क अरे यार काश मेरे पास अ छ phone रहती तो मेरा भी ऐसा अ छा photo आता है ”

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Youth thinks if their “image” on online spaces has immense importance. So in order to get nice pictures of themselves they want to get good devices. That is maybe one of the reasons behind higher turnover of these selfie expert mobile phones.

But youth became more concerned about their lives on online spaces rather than their actual real life.Perhaps through online spaces people show only the good side of their life. And youth to get to those imaginary standards youth goes out of their way. As one of the respondent said -​“सलमान खान तर सलमानने काह ह

टाकला य company चे shoes या company चे shoes तर मी हा वचार नाह करणार क याने 30-35 वष मेहनत केल ये याने या position वर गेलाय मग तो वतः या पैशाने एवढा वकत घेतोय मी हा वचार नाह करत मी काय वचार करते अरे मा या hero ने टाकला ना प पां या मागे लागायचा प पा मला हे यायचा मला ते यायचाय या बचार्-यांकडे पैसे असतील नसतील तर आपण यांना सतवणार प पा हवाय”

2 Impact on day to day life Online spaces helps youth to get motivated,relieve their stress ,improve their lifestyle,get information,etc. Whereas various negative impact has been observed in the responses of respondents of online space.

In city like mumbai travelling is inevitable important for every individuals. Most of the youth uses online spaces during travelling as a timepass or entertainment or other different purposes .But people are so much engrossed into that they forget about their surroundings.As one of the respondent said,

“​हां यह बहुत बार होता है

क मोबाइल लेकर बैठ जाओ तो खाने क चीज भूल जाते ह बहुत कुछ भूल जाते ह यह बहुत बडा disadvantage ​है

mobile क ​ ा लेने जाना था और मेरे friend ​ने मुझे message ​और म उसको reply ​देने म बहुत time ​ चला गया मेरे को खुद को ह मालूम पड़ा तो वैसा होता है म बस म जा रह थे और मुझे उतरना था और म मोबाइल म थी तो पता ह नह ं चला और आगे उतर गई”

नह ं

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Today’s reality is that youth uses their phone so much that logging into online spaces is the first thing they do in the morning. They use their phone when they wake up in the morning and the last thing they use before they sleep in the night. youth have became more used to sharing their thoughts every second. They feel happy when they post things online. They like posting the pictures on social media wherever they have been rather than actually being there. For example, if they have been to some place then rather than enjoying the scenic beauty they prefer uploading pictures of these scenic beauty. It has been observed in the responses that they get sometimes get jealous that they are not travelling to exotic places like their friends are. It is also observed from the data that youth believes in live in the moment rather than posting on social media. And people who post pictures of their lifestyle, youth thinks that they are just showing off.As one of our respondent said​“S​ ee I don't think I use much of these social media but talking about the others point of view ​देखा जायेगा दस ू रे लोग ने भी दे खा है there are many people many teenagers they use lot of social media and i feel like ​उनक life ​चालू होती है social media​ से and end भ ​ ी होती है social media से सुबह ऊठे selfie लगे and instagram पे सबसे पहले post आएगा क good morning everybody and जब रात को सोने जा रहे हो ता बभी वाह selfie लगे good night everybody have a good sleep so this is what you know impact on everybody हो रहा है social media का लोगो पर ठ क है कुछ खाया तोह उसका भी photo click करगे

क I am eating so and so at so and so place so I feel like आज का जो teenager है youth है वो लोग बहुत ह गलत use कर रहे है social media का” Now a days youth is very concerned about their phone ,that they can’t imagine their life. They can’t spend a day without the online spaces. Usage of online spaces has became part of their life. They make their daily timetable which includes which series are they going to watch, which pictures they are going to post.

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3. Impact on society “how social media is connecting you or disconnecting you all from society against it it's disconnecting you from society so I gave that an example see you are sitting in your home शाम का time है suddenly आपके घर मे मेहमान

आ जाते है and continuously you are chatting with your friends chatting chatting chatting मे मेहमान आपके चले गए और आपको पता भी नह चलता है ” Giving more importance to online spaces rather than the person talking in front of them has become very common nowadays. Which is very disturbing reality of today’s youth. But some of the youth also realizes that physically meeting people is way more important than communicating through online spaces.

4. Impact on privacy “privacy feel ​नह

होता social media ​पर बोहोत कुछ मतलब खयाल रखना पड़ता है अगर कोई unknown friends​ अगर like

add ​कर रहे है तो कौन है पूछना पड़ता है dp ह​ ै तो छुपाना पड़ता है last seen hide क ​ रना पड़ता है अगर

कसी का boyfriend​ है

girlfriend ह​ ै तो सबसे पहले parents ​से hide ​करना पड़ता है dp hide क ​ रना पड़ता है last seen hide ​करना status hide ​करना पड़ता है नह तो whatsapp ​पे ह

direct block”

Although all online space provide privacy to individuals but many people can't find that privacy enough for them ,it may be because they are so much concerned about their information to be leaked or share with unknown or with relatives so they take many actions by themselves to prevent leakage of their information. If

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they are in a romantic relationship then they don’t want that to share with their parents or relatives. Most of the parents and relatives are users of Facebook and WhatsApp so they don’t feel that their privacy is protected.

5. ​Impact on physical Online spaces has impact on youth’s physical health. Although it also helped youth to get fitness tips via videos for their physical health. But many respondents feel that there physical health has impacted badly due to online space. As one of our respondent said​“​ I have encountered strain in my eyes. A lot of time I have water coming out of my eyes. I have headache too”

One the the respondent shared view how online space has impacted others in the surrounding.​“ मेर एक friend है वह Facebook पर इतना यादा post करती थी, आज फर बाद म उसका mobile बगड़ गया तो फर वह जब उसके mobile हाथ म होता था, तो वह बहुत active होती थी फर वो एकदम normal लड़क के जैसे हो गई और बीमार हो गई फर बाद म जब उसको उसका mobile वापस मल गया तो उसका mood change हो गया” youth have become so much hooked to these online spaces that without them they get physically sick and restless.

6. Impact on classroom culture “I don't even touch my phone right now during exams but there was a time when people used to to call there was a nervous group chart.”

During stressful times youth tends to go to online spaces and reaching out to others instead of calling them or meeting their friends physically or actually studying and handling

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the situations on their own.As said by our responden ​“​You know actually मेरे साथ भी हुआ है मेरे college क group है तो उधर ना बहुत बकवास message आते है good morning and boys बहुत बकवास and ग दे ग दे words लखते है कभी-कभी 1 बार ना अपनी exam का time table हमारा confirmनह था तो maine पु ्छा उनसे क timetable का या है तो कोई message नह कया मेरे याल से कोई फोटो पो ट कया और व बहुत funny था तो सबने हसने का picture भेजा तो मेने बोला उन लोग को यार tum log कोई अलग ुप बनाओ यु क हमारे papers है तो ऐसा होता है ना तो

हुम लॉग बहुत ऐसे होते है क हा groupपे मेने शायद post कया है तो आए होगा कूछ message तो उन लोग मुझे पता नह या या केह डाले द द वगैरह बहुत studios है ये करना वो तो मेने उन लोग को annexture क ऐसा कुछ नह है ये सब के लये दस ू रा group बनाओ तो time table नह आया था यह semester क बात है तो मेने उसे सम या क time table नह आया तो व लोग नह माने तो बहुत बोलने लगे तो मेने शायद से left कर दया फर मेरे एक friend हे classes क उसने मुझ े add कया ऐसा कैसे चलेगा regular messages आते है ”

Some of the youth in exam times depend on online spaces and it is seen from the opinions of respondents that youth seems more interesting in the entertainment and less interested in studies. And because of their contradictions in the interests they get frustrated and get engaged arguments. “अगर दन भर म WhatsApp, WhatsApp, WhatsApp क ँ गी ना तो फर मै आगे या क ं गी आगे तो मुझे studies

करना है study म ना ऐसे ह लोग बार-बार fail होते है ऐसे ह लोग को बार-बार kt लगती है य क पूरा दन वह tag करना friend request के बारे मे सोचते रहते है बस और कुछ नह ”

youth feels that because of continuous and reckless usage of online spaces they get bad impacts on their studies.

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“​हा class क ​ े messages आ ​ ते है ना बहुत सारे बहुत गु

सा आता है या important message नह

बस बकवास message रे हते

है तो उसके वजह से बहुत गु सा आता है ”

Respondents said that online spaces helps them in studies but at the same time they use it for less productive purposes. During exam times youth gets in arguments as there are differences in their for the usage of online spaces.

7. Impact on political views “There is a difference between what we see on online world and how it is in life.”

Some of the youth realizes that the difference between real world and reel world. So they know what to believe and what not. They know how to use it wisely.

“Definitely online space has made me very open minded compared to my parents and my peers. When it comes to issue like LGBT rights etc. for eg. The navy commander was fired because he had a gender change operation.

My mother thought it was correct because women were not allowed to hold that post.”

The things which were taboo in the past, now youth are thinking and expressing themselves with a open mind. They are more exposed to many things. Their tendency of accepting things has increased.

As one of our experts said,

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“​I think that online spaces has made youth to be little more accepting. Like now a days hugs and all are normal whereas still in our generation that is to be frowned upon”

8. Impact on academics “When I was in 12th that time I really had to study a lot and I just was watching YouTube, youTube not that much but I really binged on to Facebook and kept on wasting time.”

youth generally gets access to online spaces in their college period so they’re very curious about it and without them knowing about it they get hooked up to these apps which leads them to not concentrate on studies which have affect in their academics. As one of our respondent said, “I restricted my use that I just used to check my notifications and nothing much and mostly used it at weekends” And when these affects make toll on them like getting a kt then they restrict their usage.

9. Impact on emotions Social media had been such a huge part of the youth that their impacts on their emotions are unavoidable .

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“​अ

छे

comments ​आये तो चलो अ

छा है , और बुरा है तो सबको बुरा लगता है मुझे भी लगेगा म तो सोचती हो ह उसे block kar द ​ े ना

चा हये या personal number ​रहे गा तो chat​ करना चाइये क ,तुझे या problem ह ​ ै इतने लोग दे ख रहे है”

The events which are happening in the virtual world affect them in their real life. If they get comments which are flattering to them they feel good about it and if they get bad comments then they tend to block who have commented bad things that is just removing them from their virtual reality altogether. “​ हणजे जर कधी upset अ ​ सल

तर थोडा वेळ mood ठ ​ क होतो हा होतो mood change ​ हणजे जर मला आज ma’am ​ने ओरडले

तर समजा मला marks क ​ मी मळालेत ma’am​मला खूप ओरडल मी अस ब घतलं तर घर गे यावर मी अ यास करणार 2 -3 तास तर पण घर गे यावर हणणार entertainment ​ हणून बघणार जे मी जे ठरवलं ते वस न जाणार”

When they get yelled by their elders regarding studies from their teachers or parents they feel that guilt of giving more importance to online spaces rather than studies. But after sometime again they get hooked up to these apps and that feeling of guilt subsides.

“If I'm texting my friend they are online and they don't see my message या दे खके reply नह करते I get frustrated

मुझे गु सा आता है उनपे क like why can't you reply if you're busy just tell me you're busy I won't text you ऐसा है ”

This instant messaging through online spaces has become habit of the youth. This habit has made them very impatient and aggressive unknowingly.These effects on youth are very slow and at first they are very subtle but then it goes on increasing and make them in general

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aggressive in nature. These online spaces makes youth feel like they are on roller coaster on emotional level. “​हां हुआ है कोई कोई messages​ऐसे आ जाते ह

क िजसको सोचते-सोचते दमाग हर जगह से वह जाता है क हां यह messages ​आया था

उसने यह कया है तो यह सब दमाग म घूमता रहता है offline ​होने के बाद भी”

Some respondent said -“Facebook account delete क ​ रके अभी मै

सफ Whatsapp ​पे हु ले कन अभी भी दे खती हु वो मै

मेरे भाई के mobile प ​ े दे खती हु ”

youth finds it very hard to stay away from these online spaces. They find it very difficult to everyday tasks like studies as their whole attention is to their online spaces. This leads to condition which is now very commonly called Phantom vibration syndrome. Which is very common but at the same time disturbing reality of today’s youth. “दे खो Digital India हो रहा है modernisation है तो हम improve होना तो message is such a very good thing

य क

seconds म मुझे सामने वाले इंसान से या बात करने वह मेर बात उससे पहुंच जाती है पर उसका drawback भी दे खा जाए

तो impatient हो गए कसी को message send कया seen कया तो problem message मने भेजा था reply नह ं कया तो probelm यह सार चीज हो रह है उसके advantage है बहुत है तो disadvantage भी है सामने वाले person पर करता है उसे

कस तर के से ले रहा है ” As it can be seen many articles which has been mentioned in literature review, online spaces are boon and bane at the same time. These online spaces have made possible to get in touch with our loved ones in split seconds.

But along with that there is constant need of getting instant response from others.

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“​नाह

असं नाह जर माझे bestfriend ​माझे close friend ​ यांनी जर माझे dp आ ​ ण status seen ​नाह केल म ​ ला reply ​नाह

केला तर मला राग येतो”

On other side they said -“​मला काह च नाह

फरक पडत मला हणजे दै नं दन हणजे जवळची माणसं यानी जर reply ​केला तर

छान वाटत, बाक याच I don't Care​ ​ हणजे यानी माझे photo ​पा हलेत, हणजे like क ​ रतात च ,reply क ​ रतात ,comments वगेरे करतात पण हणजे मी यांचे pic ब ​ घते ,मी यांना reply करतात ,मग यांचे पण कत य आहे क यानी मला बोलले पा हजे क छान

pic आ ​ हे ,friend​कोण आहे ,तुमचा group छ ​ ान आहे ,असं कोणी तर

बोलले पा हजे ,मी जर कोणाला बोलते तर मी पण expect ​करते”

youth feels the need of appreciation from their loved ones on online spaces. But further respondent also said that if the flattery is from other people that doesn’t really matter to them.

Whatever they do such as liking their pictures and commenting on their pictures then they feel that it should be reciprocated. youth feels the constant need of their flattery.

“I said when patrick died then I thought series will end so after that what I’m gonna do with my life and all.”

youth gets so much involved in series that they get forget about their reality. They get engrossed in the series. If their series ends they don’t know what to do cause all they do is watch that series continuously.

“It feels good when people like what your thinking or your thoughts”.

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Now a days youth feels it’s a safe place to express themselves. And when somebody likes what their thoughts and things are then they feel good about it. So basically the happenings of the virtual world affects them in real life.

● Overall impact As the above data shows impact on different phases of life, the overall degree of impact on the youth was seen when we asked our respondents if they can control their usage of online spaces we got a two-sided response as youth who could control themselves from overuse had a moderate usage of 2-4 hrs .And youth who could not limit their use or who were addicted to online spaces, moderate their usage because of external factors such as exams pressure, and parental control.

“​ले कन पहले

या होता था starting starting म ​ जब म 10th ​मे थीं तो मैने start ​ कया था fb ​वग़ैरा तो म बहुत यादा addict ​हो

गई थी उस चीज़ के लये तो तब जब मेरे पास internet ​नह रहता था तो म बोलती थी यह या हो गया,,internet च ​ ा हए,,चा हए,,चाइये, फर म रोती थी, पापा को बोलती

please internet dalo dalo ,​मेरे च

कर मे मेरे papa ​ने wifi ल ​ गा दया घर पे.

tension ​ख़

म कया

ऐसा ऐसा हो गया था ले कन सबकुछ नह फक पढ़ता यू क जब म 12 th म ​ आई न तो पता चल गया यह सब कुछ नह होता सब tp ह​ ै imp तो पढ़ना imp ह ​ ै ,उसके बाद बहुत jyaada use न​ ह कया internet ,​नह हो तो भी चल जाता है”

Some of the youth out of curiosity youth gets hooked up to these online spaces and when they start affecting them like in the studies etc. So they inhibited their usage. They used to get restless when online spaces were not available for them but now they have made peace with it.

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“It gives you pseudo satisfaction away from the harsh realities of the fasttrack as well as brutal world.”

youth thinks one should know how to balance the usage of these online spaces. Whatever feeling they get by using these online spaces are very temporary. “as such it effects their social life they become solitary, narrow minded and sometimes become aggressive. One of my friend is aggressive. Like if you say bad about that thing then he starts cursing why did you say that and all. You shouldn’t say bad words about this guy and all. Like they compare them with characters” youth gets so engrossed in social media that they forget to stay in society. They become more introvert. They get comfortable in their own little space and when they get out of their zone they find it very hard to have offline communication.

Being on social media is so common these days that not being on one makes you feel like alienated in a crowd. Online dating apps , being on Facebook, Instagram is fun but it comes with its own shortcomings. Cyber bullying, getting trolled which is literally mental harassment which further leads to depression, anxiety, loss of confidence and losing yourself in a way.

Netflix, the word says it all. The youth these days are so much into netflix and binge watching an entire season in a day that they forget how it is affecting their life and are being proud about it. Because the netflix shows the content which youth relates to but they forget that it is just a form of entertainment and should be took in that way. And not relate themselves to the

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character of the show and start acting like one. Also if we are getting good influence its well and good if its helping. As they say you’re your only best friend it’s on you how you take the influence and how you shape your life with it.

● Influence Online spaces provides a great platform with for one to explore their talent and has also created new ways for individual to communicate, congregate & share information of their life and things related to their life. The increase in usage of online spaces has lead to many positive and negative effects. It is obvious that online spaces has and will continue to change the way youth lives. It has also changed the field of education, health, business and even politics in the world.

The online spaces have influenced the youth to a very large extent. There were both positive and negative influences seen in youth. Online spaces has lead to positive influence as in by relieving the stress of a large number of youth, it has not only relieved stress but also has motivated many of them & has also resulted in women empowerment through different videos and posts.

“Let’s take example of Grey’s anatomy so first I used to play this game greys and one day my cousin told me this game cause I used to like surgeries and all so and go and play then I played and then searched and then I. Came to know it’s a series then I watched the first episode then I liked it so I watched the whole season then continue continue then I felt like let’s become a doctor (laughing) so for a reason it motivates me to become a doctor.”

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While some said - “​ ख ​ ुद को charge ​करने के

लए motivational videos ​देखो जैसे टाटा, अंबानी, संद प माहे वर इन सब क

speech ​सुनोगे तो depression ह​ ोगा तो चला जायेगा” “ It has made so many women speak out against sexual harassment and made people realize that it is not the victim's fault. Also watching documentaries makes me accept all sorts of sexual orientation and genders. But sometimes we just bluntly watch videos with explicit graphic content.”

By these responses it can be clearly seen that some revolutionary changes are happening. youth is getting more open minded. Sexual and gender wise things which used to be considered taboo in the past are now getting embraced by today’s youth.

It has helped many of them to explore their hobbies and has also helped them in studies as online spaces had provided a great platform to express themselves and to keep them updated about events happening in their surrounding.

“I do believe in feminism जो म instagram पर जो post दे खती हूं feminist का जो दे खती हूं I know what is happening around the world more अ छे से य क obviously I can’t go to the news all the time.”

While some said -“दु नया से अनजान थे अब नह है ” “Influence अब तक एक ह चीज से हुई थी वह थी snapchat िजसके अंदर वह Faces वगैरा आते ह और इस लए वह मुझ े

बहुत यादा पसंद है वह म अभी भी करती हूं घर पर जब भी free रहती हू अपनी म मी के साथ अपने भाई के साथ अपने पापा के साथ सबके साथ और doggie वाला फोटो लेती हू जो और वह अ छा भी लगता है अ छा लगता है you know उसके वजह से mood change होता है whatsapp पे chat करने से अ छा ,facebook पे tag करने से अ छा photo

वोटो ऐसा अ छा कुछ कया तो अ छा लगता है ”

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youth has also used online spaces for making their mood good by entertainment. It has created a new way for an individual to connect with the outside world, family as well as friends. There were few of them who compared themselves with famous personalities and wanted to achieve heights. By seeing the great personalities in person by the means of their social media accounts feels that they are very similar to them hence they can reach to that position which is quite motivating.

“I told you na it influenced me to become a doctor, to become a figure skater and I forgot to tell you yaar that I’m big fan of ‘manga’ so I watch so much online manga and animes and stuff sometimes I feel like to become a manga.​” It was also found that youth's lifestyle was getting affected. Many bollywood celebrities are on Instagram so today’s youth follows these social media accounts of these celebrities. They follow their hair styles, clothes, makeup, etc. and then get influenced by that. Now a days when celebrities wear some branded clothes then they tag that brand so the youth which follows them tends to go to that site and do everything to buy the same clothes from that site. This has increased the turnover of online shopping sites. “जो हम लोग style करते है , जो कपड़े पहनते है वो सब online spaces से affected है , what we see in different people, shoes हो या कुछ भी हो, बड़े artists जो भी पहनते है it affects a lot. खाने, पने,रहने का सब चीज पर effect करता है ” And it was also seen that the youth compared their life with tv shows contents. youth gets fascinated by this content and feels the urge to imitate whatever they have seen in such contents.

“FRIENDS tv show, it floats this idea of living together with friends which actually is not possible in india and is not a part of indian culture, but they still have some unreal expectations like this.”

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Online spaces was also found to be a threat to many lives such as blue whale game which had roots deeply sunken to the fact that these young people were kind of isolated and to kill the time they got trapped in this beautiful but fatal trap. There might be many reasons behind it but lack of communication was also one of the reasons why youth lost their valuable lives by using such apps.

As humans having monkey ancestors imitating others actions has been in the genes. Following what others are doing has been prominently seen in youth. In many pictures like photoshoots of some celebrities, they click pictures while smoking. Not only celebrities but also people who are in youth’s friend circle also uploads boomerangs or videos or pictures of smoking weeds with hookah pot. This eventually inspires others to follow the same and get addicted to the drugs and alcohol.

“I feel yes it has made things like smoking and drinking glamorous. It used to happen in movies. But now when your peers are doing it has made it cool or less harmless. It has made things like smoking weed quite normal and it seems fun but side effects is not been clicked and uploaded.”

From the data it has been observed that the people who are in a relationship will post pictures in some romantic poses with some romantic captions. By looking at these posts the ones who are not in such intimate relationship feels the urge to get in one. So sometimes youth gets influenced to get engaged in such relationships.

“​आजकाल trend​झालाय relationship म ​

ये यायचा हणजे यायचाच आहे ”

From the received data we came to know that from the considered population of youth, maximum number of youth were having positive influence and most of them were having no influence whereas only few number of youth were having negative influence.

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Today’s youth can get influenced by online spaces either in a positive or negative way depending on the their perspective that is how they take the thing which they watch on these online spaces.

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V. Research findings A) New normal - On an average, a user in India spends 200 minutes (approx 3 and half hour) a day which includes the youth as well. After analysing the responses of respondents it has been seen that youth spends more than 3-4 hours actively on online spaces per day. Most of the youth find this duration very normal whereas some of the youth finds this abnormal. Youth spends their time on these online spaces for various purposes like motivating themselves when they are feeling low, trying to do what they love, that is to pursue their hobbies, for study purposes like videos which helps them to visually learn the concept through 3D structures, for entertainment purpose like TV series of different genres, languages, cultures , short films on YouTube, etc, For creating something new that is for helping them to make innovative and creative things of their own. ​ B) Connection - Youth uses these online spaces to connect to the outside world that is society. They find this way to connect to the world very convenient as it relatively cheap and the speed is very brisk. Along with that the replies also can be received very speedily. To have a connection to the individual youth prefers face to face conversations over communication on online spaces. Contradicting to these youth spend more time on communication through online spaces than physically meeting their loved ones. ​ C) Impact - Online spaces has impacted the classroom culture in a broad spectrum. The time when online spaces were not so much in use, attendance in college used to be 100% whereas now when online spaces has became a important part of youth’s lives the classroom attendance is relatively very low. Before the exam period when there is a need of notes for studying and going all the way to college is not feasible then WhatsApp becomes the Knight in the shining armour and helps the youth by its feature of sharing pictures or PDF files. But at the same time if youth is getting all the notes from college through these online spaces then they tend to bunk college more frequently.

Through the responses one important trait was observed that is when youth in generally after passing out 9th, 10th, 11th standard uses online spaces in a really huge amount. The major reason behind these

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is they find it very fascinating as they are very curious to know more and more about these online spaces.

At that age one can not help but get lured towards these captivating online spaces. But after a point usually when their studies get affected due to these online spaces they inhibit themselves to use or altogether avoid using these online spaces.

According to the responses youth thinks that online spaces has made them more open minded, they compare themselves or their lifestyles to the things which they see on these online spaces. They tend to keep their online life private that they don’t really want to share details of their online life with parents and relatives. That is more achievable through WhatsApp and Instagram as compared to Facebook.

To analyse the impact of these online spaces on different generation responses of expert interviews has been a great help. The older generation thinks that when compared to the older times today’s youth has all the information on their fingertips. In a split second they get each and every detailed piece of information which they need which was not the case in older times. But at the same times this advantage of availability of the speedy and wide range of information it has its drawbacks as well. As innumerable amount of information is available on these online spaces youth tends to get confused. Because of the habit of instant messaging youth has become very impatient they are in constant need of instant gratification. Youth has become very brand conscious because of these online spaces when compared to the older times.

Binge Watching is the new trend in youth really enjoys but at the same time it is causing them physical harm like strain on their eyes. They are sometimes getting addicted to it in such a way that they lose track of their surroundings and time as well. Binge watching is not always harmful for the youth it has helped them in studies also. They tend to watch series which they can relate to so they get help in doing what they love to do like pursuing their hobbies.

Online spaces has influenced the youth in both the ways, positive and negative as well. By following different fashion related pages they get some ideas to create their own art or follow some celebrities fashion. Simultaneously in order to follow these things youth goes out of their way which is not quiet good.

The impacts of these online spaces on youth are astounding. The virtual appreciation is very essential for them. The likes, comments and dislikes are impacting their emotions. More the likes more will be their joyousness. If somebody comments bad or rude things then that makes them very upset they get

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offended. Youth has became so much used to thes online spaces that when they have no access to these online spaces because of lack of internet data they seemed to have extreme behaviour patterns. They get outraged. This absence of online spaces in their life makes them irritated. This non existence for some period is maddening for them so much to the point that they feel like flinging their phones far away.

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VI. Conclusion Online spaces consists of many things and today’s youth one or the other way is a part of these online spaces. Youth is very curious and they’re more acceptable towards the greatest shifts in terms of technology and building and maintaining relationships through these online spaces.

Most of the youth would not be able to fathom the world without these online spaces and most of them do not remember the time when it did not exist at all. Online spaces has such made groundbreaking changes in a methods of communication and being social.

“Social media is addictive precisely because it gives something which the real world lack : it gives is immediacy, direction, and a value as an individual.” Said by David Amerland This quote explains itself the reason for the great expand and astonishable popularity of the online spaces among youth. youth thinks that they know better when difficult times comes in their lives. In the age of prominent usage of online spaces youth don’t get so much engrossed that they forget about their responsibilities in their lives. “हा शवाजी महाराज आ ण पेश यांनी खूप काह केलं कारण यां या वर तशी प रि थती आल होती तसेच जर काह

येक individual या life म ये घडलं तर ते ह जबाबदार ने वागतील , मग असं नाह बोलु शकत क youth active नाह य आहे पण तशी वेळ

येका या life म ये येते आ ण याला वतः या abilities ची जाणीव होते”

There’s no denying the fact that youth is very active on online spaces but due to curiosity they get instantly hooked to these spaces. But after some time when that starts affecting their studies or other things they

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altogether inhibit their usage or manage their usage. At the same time youth knows how to and for how much time to use these online spaces but it gets very difficult for them to control that by themselves.

They prefer face to face conversation over online communication,because according to them physically meeting their loved ones is more important for them in relationships. youth also feels the need to get their thoughts recognised and appreciated. They get exposed to so many things through these online spaces so they get international and local information as well.

Most of the youth likes to keep their updates, profile pictures private. So they prefer Whatsapp over Facebook.

They tend not to share their updates with their relatives or parents.

The more freedom we’re given to express ourselves, the more we want to be free of having to deal with anyone who may disagree with us or upset us. The more exposed we are to opposing viewpoints, the more we seem to get upset that those other viewpoints exist. The easier and more problem-free our lives become, the more we seem to feel entitled for them to get even better.

The benefits of the online spaces are unquestionably fantastic. In many ways, this is the best time in history to be alive. But perhaps these technologies are having some unintended social side effects. Incident like Blue whale is a sad example of such effects. Perhaps these same technologies that have liberated and educated so many are simultaneously making them unaware about other things.

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VII. Suggestion

Positive impact is always appreciated but when we talk about negative impact the results are such that

youth should learn to inhibit or control it. You must be having a question that how one can control these negative impacts of online spaces on them or how one should use it wisely. When we asked respondents about their suggestions then following suggestions were given. ● Scheduling everyday’s timetable w.r.t academics and daily life ● Spending more time with friends and family ● Living in the moment. ● Engaging in physical activities ● Focusing on studies ● Not befriending unknown people on social media to maintain privacy ● Maintaining privacy on social medias ● Prioritizing everyday tasks ● Parents should have some control before the situation gets bad. ● Government should put constraints on illegal sites

● Have some goals and invest time in achieving them. ● Try 20 min "social detoxification”

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VII. Our Journey ​ Our group name is Microbots. It means micro robots and has also one more meaning, as our group has members from microbiology, biotechnology and statistics streams so it was also the compilation of all our names.

We all were from Guru Nanak Khalsa college but were unknown to each other. Our journey started when we all strangers first time met at a 3 days residential camp at Yuva centre, Kharghar. As there were many people of different backgrounds so many activities were performed like “sola ka sola tambola” so that we would mix with others and would get friendly with them. Earlier we were not able to talk to others and were only with our friends.

This activity helped us to know each other and talk to each other. We were also told to make dinner this made us learn how to work in a team, coordinate in a team and understand each other. There was also one activity known as “Chand ka safar” in which we learned group coordination, unity, team work, we learned that one should give his/her best no matter what the results be and we also learned that one should be honest with his/her work. In the beginning we were a group of 10 but than 3 members left the group. We are 6 girls and a boy. In the beginning we were not able to work with each other, as we didn’t agree with each other’s point. It was like a cold war between all the 6 girls’ vs 1 boy. We had several arguments in our group regarding selection of topic. We selected certain topics which were harassment with girls on streets, prostitution, depression, education for poor beggar children, etc. It was told that the topic should be related to our life. After too many of fights, discussions and also with the help of facilitator we arrived to our topic i.e. Impact of online spaces on emotions of youth of Khalsa college. In the beginning we didn't know how we would go on further with research but as the time passed PUKAR guided us with the process. We all learned a lot by various sessions and workshops held on Sunday by PUKAR. The sessions were good but some would have been more interesting if more activities were involved.

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Group work As the time passed we all members of group started to adjust with each other, listening to each other's point, most of the time even understand each other, as usual fight with each other, helped each other and supported each other.

Meetings In the beginning days we used to conduct our group meetings in empty classrooms of our college. But after non availability of classrooms we started to conduct our meetings in joggers park (government premises). Our facilitator was Neetu and mentor was Salman. They were very helpful and very supportive. When we had any problem and when there were group dynamics our mentor and facilitator helped us sorting out them.

Interviews and FGDs We conducted interviews for our qualitative data. In the beginning we were tensed about how would we conduct interviews. As we had to conduct interviews according to respondents convenience and we were going to do it for the first time. But when we went on the field it was easier to conduct interviews as the respondents themselves were very curious about it, in fact some got so much interested that they wanted to join PUKAR. It was also a challenge for us as many of the respondents were not picking up calls for interviews and many were making excuses. We conducted 2 FGD’s and it was a great experience. During one FGD we were taking permission from respondents in their classroom it was such a situation that they told us that they would participate in FGD only if the lecture would not be conducted and then their professor arrived we informed her about our topic and she got so much impressed that she allowed us to do the FGD in her lecture and even she gave feedback after the FGD.

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Transcription & Data analysis Data transcription was very challenging as well as important part for everyone in the group. But as the time passed by we finished our transcription. The best thing that we learned from transcription was of learning how to use different apps for transcription. Data analysis was better than transcription. We did our work and enjoyed a lot and learned many things like critical thinking. But data analysis was stressful as we worked for many hours every day to complete it.

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VII. Bibliography ​ 1)Facebook Request | Short Film on Depression | TRIGGER WARNING! https://youtu.be/rQxUamGOQEM​ Viewed on:16/09/17 2) Spending too much time online 'causing mental illness in children' government health advisers warn http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/spending-much-time-online-causing-3549003#ICID=sharebar _whatsapp​ Viewed on:20/09/17 3) FACEBOOK DEPRESSION is Real and Affects Your Life https://youtu.be/8IZyjYpaCzE​ Viewed on:20/09/17 4) Mental Health and Young People https://youtu.be/IGv-ZXQzYtE​ Viewed on:21/09/17 5) The Impact of Social Media on Our Mental Health https://youtu.be/YxY4j3P76DQ​ Viewed on:21/09/17 6) Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? https://youtu.be/Czg_9C7gw0o​ Viewed on:21/09/17 7) Social Media's Impact on Human Behavior https://youtu.be/6oLe2stRSbw​ Viewed on:21/09/17 8) How the media affects the youth https://youtu.be/HjnclEhy960​ Viewed on:21/09/17

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9) Is Social Media Good for You? https://youtu.be/po01VlNvCcQ​ Viewed on:21/09/17 10) Online Social Networking and Mental Health https://googleweblight.com/i?u=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/&grqid=u HvOmZIm&hl=en-IN​ Viewed on:23/09/17 11) सोशल मी डया साथीचे ५ आजार Read more: http://m.lokmat.com/storypage.php?catid=12385&newsid=200409251​ (Sent via Lokmat App) Viewed on:23/09/17 12) सोशल मी डयाचं यसन दा आ ण सगरे टपे ाह गंभीर Read more: http://m.lokmat.com/storypage.php?catid=12385&newsid=200409255​ (Sent via Lokmat App) Viewed on:23/09/17 13) What Are the Effects of Social Media on youth? https://turbofuture.com/internet/effects-of-social-media-on-our-youth​ Viewed on:23/09/17 14) Inside out Movie https://fmovies.ag/watch/inside-out-2015-online-fmovies.html​ Viewed on:23/09/17 15) दे तो काय सोशल मी डया न क आप याला? Read more: http://m.lokmat.com/storypage.php?catid=12385&newsid=200409242​ (Sent via Lokmat App) Viewed on:23/09/17

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16) 80 ट के भारतीयांची होते ऑनलाइन छळवणक ू , सव णातन ू झालं उघड Read more: http://m.lokmat.com/storypage​.php?catid=12404&newsid=200420776 (Sent via Lokmat App) Viewed on:9/10/17 17) Are You Living an Insta Lie? Social Media Vs. Reality https://youtu.be/0EFHbruKEmw​ Viewed on:18/10/17 18) मान सक

या खचले यांना सोशल मी डयाचा ‘आ वासक’ आधार; ‘हॅश टॅ ग’सह ेमाचा हात दे याचा य न

Read more: h ​ ttp://m.lokmat.com/storypage.php?catid=12418&newsid=200428072​ (Sent via Lokmat App) Viewed on:28/10/17 19) Mumbai, it’s time to focus on your kids’ mental health - Times of India - http://toi.in/X6WqQb/a18ag​ Viewed on:22/11/17 20) Sad reality in today's world https://youtu.be/hxj0tah_0xc​ Viewed on:15/12/17 21) IMPACT of Social Media on youth https://youtu.be/OVoh4YeY1JQ​ Viewed on:15/12/17 22) The Effects of Social Media on youth https://youtu.be/w5BQ9FNxBGk​ Viewed on:15/12/17 23) 14 ways Social media is changing You https://youtu.be/DsP6BAfcwsg​ Viewed on:18/12/17 24) Anti social | A short film [Social media] https://youtu.be/Uz2ONZLxQi8​ Viewed on:18/12/17

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25) Negative effects of social media on teens https://youtu.be/3B2K2zUDmVE​ Viewed on:10/01/18 26) Penetration of leading social networks in India as of 3rd quarter 2017 https://www.statista.com/statistics/284436/india-social-network-penetration/​ Viewed on:11/05/18 27) 76% of YouTube users are underage: Survey - News18 https://www.news18.com/news/tech/76-of-youtube-users-are-underage-survey-1180157.html​ Viewed on:11/05/18 28) Impact of Social Networking on Indian youth-A Survey - ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322538324_Impact_of_Social_Networking_on_Indian_yout h-A_Survey​ Viewed on:11/05/18 29) Most popular global mobile messenger apps as of April 2018, based on number of monthly active users (in millions) https://www.statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-global-mobile-messenger-apps/​ Viewed on:11/05/18 30) YouTube India viewers spend over 48 hours a month watching videos https://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/youtube-india-viewers-spend-over-48-hours-a-month-watchingvideos-330261​ Viewed on:11/05/18 31) Social Media Use in 2018 http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/​ Viewed on:12/05/18

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32) Teenagers say goodbye to Facebook and hello to messenger apps https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/teenagers-messenger-apps-facebook-exodus Viewed on:12/05/18 33) Trust in Facebook has dropped by 66 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/trust-facebook-has-dropped-51-percent-cambridge-analyt ica-scandal-n867011​ Viewed on:12/05/18 34) HOW IS SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECTING OUR COMMUNICATION? https://www.nrmedia.biz/blog/how-is-social-media-affecting-our-communication V ​ iewed on:12/05/18 35) This Is How Technology Is Affecting Your Relationship https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/17/technology-changing-relationships_n_5884042.html Viewed on:12/05/18 36)​Directed by Bhave S. & Sukthankar S .(​ ​6​th​ October 2017) Kaasav 2016 indian Marathi language Film 37) Usage period of online spaces https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/indians-spend-70-of-mobile-internet-time-on-so cial-entertainment/articleshow/62125840.cms

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IX. Annexure a) Annexure 1 - Consent form for teachers

To Respected Prof. ______________________ Department of _______________________ Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Matunga (E), Mumbai Subject: Requesting for permission for taking interview.

Respected Sir/Madam, We are the students of Khalsa college and we have enrolled in PUKAR fellowship. PUKAR is the organization of hands-on learning which enhances the role of youth in community which is also associated with Gunvati J Kapoor Foundation (GJKF).

Our topic is Impact of online spaces on emotional and mental health of youth of Khalsa college. As social media and video streaming ( binge watching) has became prominent part of youth’s life, so we want to know it’s impact on youths emotional and mental health. We want to know your views on this topic. We kindly request you to give us 40-50 min. of your schedule for our interview. Hope that you will allow us for taking interview.

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Thankyou Name and Signature of Professor

Name and Signature of Researcher

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b) Annexure 2 - Consent form for students

CONSENT LETTER You are being asked to participate in a research study conducted by Members of the research Group - MICROBOTS from PUKAR organization. The purpose of this study is to IMPACT OF ONLINE SPACES ON youth.

Research Procedures This study consists of a survey that will be administered to individual participants in or around Khalsa College. You will be asked to provide answers to a series of questions related to the given topic. We will be conducting interviews and/or audio/video taping participants. The investigator takes the full responsibility to maintain anonymity of the data obtained (verbal or in written) and will not use any of the participants identity.

We will use the following data ●

Your age

●

Your gender

●

Information given to investigator in FGD or Interview Time Required: Participation in this study will require 30-60 minutes (approx.) of your time.

Confidentiality

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The results of this research will be presented at various events. While individual responses are obtained and recorded anonymously and kept in the strictest confidence, aggregate data will be presented representing averages or generalizations about the responses as a whole. Participants should provide there contact no. or Email ID for a follow-up interview if they wish to. No identifiable information will be collected from the participant and no identifiable responses will be presented in the final form of this study. All data will be stored in a secure location accessible only to the researcher. The researcher retains the right to use and publish non-identifiable data.

Participation & Withdrawal Your participation is entirely voluntary. You are free to choose not to participate. Should you choose to participate, you can withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. However, once your responses have been submitted and anonymously recorded you will not be able to withdraw from the study Giving of Consent I have read this cover letter and I understand what is being requested of me as a participant in this study. I freely consent to participate. I have been given satisfactory answers to my questions. I certify that I am at least 18 years of age.

_______________________________

______________________

____________________ Name and Signature of Participant

Contact no.

Email ID

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_______________________________ Name of Researcher (Signed)

______________ Date

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c) Annexure 3- Interview questionnaire for teachers

1.

What is your opinion about today’s online space?

2.

Over the period of time how the online space does has brought changes in youth?

3.

How it affects the life of youth?

4.

Have you ever observed any changes in behaviour of students because of online space?

5.

Your thoughts on how does this generation should use online space and for how much time?

6.

What is solution for influence of online spaces on youth?

7.

How has online spaces affected the morality of youth?

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d) Annexure 4 - Interview questionnaire for students

1.

What role do online spaces play in your life?

2.

Which online space do you use frequently in daily basis and why?

3.

What is the approx. time you use online space and is this time normal for u?

4.

Why you use online space and what does it gives to u?

5.

When you are not online for a particular period then how you spend (use) your time?

6.

Have ever online space affected your daily routine and other activities?

7.

Do you think online space connects you with other individual and to the world and how?

8.

Is this connection is as same as real life connection and why?

9.

How online space affects your emotions? Can you give any example?

10.

Do these emotions impact on your daily life?

11.

Do you agree that online space make an impact on mental health ,how? Can u share any example of experience?

12.

What is your opinion about mental or emotional health of youth in your surrounding?

13.

Have online spaces influenced you in any way?

14.

Do you have any suggestions to resist negative impact of online space on individual?

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Annexure 5 - F ​ GD Questionnaire​for students

1. What role does online spaces play in your day to day life?

2. What platform do you use on online spaces? Reasons behind it.

3. What medium do you think is better to express/communicate your feelings/emotions?

(Meaning online or in person) 4. How much time of the use do you think is necessity and how much of it is habitual or to spare time?

5. How does it affect your mood/behavior/thought process etc.?

6. How does it influence your opinion about the things in general?

7. How do you see the world connectivity being driven by online space?