We are in the golden age of communication, it has never been easier to get a message across to one person or to a whole country and times have certainly changed for the better in this department.
With all this advancement of communication, there still seems to be a lack of coherent communication with the youth. At times it seems that what the youth talk about among themselves, and what the elder generations talk about, are two different things even when it’s on the same topic. There is a clear miscommunication between all generations on most of the topics. Maybe we are all not communicating properly with one another.
Many people agree that communication is the key to build better and stronger relationships amongst ourselves. The youth mostly have a hard time understanding what direction the elders want to take them, they miscommunicate their ideas and frankly the youth just don’t get it, just like the elders don’t get the youth. This is one of the reasons there is a huge misunderstanding between generations.
Our country is relatively a conservative country, where every generation is brought up in a slightly authoritative way by its predecessors, from a young age we are taught not to talk back to our elders, not to criticise when they are wrong and to blindly obey all instructions. This is one of the reasons that the older generation and the youth have a hard time communicating and expressing their ideas to one another, it’s a broken and failing system in a fast paced and globalised world.
The world is more connected than ever and communication channels are expanding by the year, reaching and getting the youth’s attention is becoming easier and more difficult for those who refuse to adopt. Traditional methods like print media, radio and televised PSAs are not as effective as social media has been in the last few years, which also happens to be where the majority of the youth mostly live nowadays.
We all want a better future for ourselves and for those after us, it’s why we put in the work today so that tomorrow can be much better. The reality is that we cannot reach there by ourselves alone, we will have to collaborate and compromise.
It’s a team effort and everyone needs to play part, but we have to learn how to communicate with each much more efficiently.
*Olavi Popyeinawa has a Diploma in Alternative Dispute Resolution and is currently studying law, LLB at the University of Namibia (Unam). He will weekly contributing this column on youth mattersInstagram: niceguy_olavi Facebook: Olavi Longfellow Twitter: @OlaviPopyeinawa