GROWING USE OF INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN PAKISTAN: EFFECTS ON FAMILIES AND CULTURAL VALUES GROWING USE OF INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN PAKISTAN: EFFECTS ON FAMILIES AND CULTURAL VALUES

Abstract

The Information & Communication Technology-ICT devices are indispensable today.
Globally, it is evident that such technologies have variant effects on work and non-work
situations. It is generally assumed that these devices are facilitating the fast-moving
societies. Though positive effects of ICT usage are improving lifestyle but literature
emphasizes over negative consequences of social media on families particularly on
child-parent inter-relationships. ICT has well-blended itself to the everyday life of
people in modern times throughout the globe. Keeping this situation in view, the current
paper presents outcomes of an exploratory study conducted at Islamabad and
Rawalpindi with 200 postgraduate students of Allama Iqbal Open University – AIOU.
Mainly quantitative approach was employed to have a clearer and reliable
understanding about the issue under study. Specifically, to assess the effects of these
technologies on family domains at i) social, ii) cultural and iii) individual level,
purposive/judgmental sampling technique was used for data collection. The samples
consist of both male and female respondents’ views, which advance our understanding
about how social media is shaping social, cultural aspects of family life and
relationships of individuals in families. The study also examined the positive/negative
influences of social media, which provided several dimensions helping to offer suitable
measures for the optimum beneficial utilization of ICT at family level.