It is no news that technology has evolved so much that almost everything in this 21st century has felt its impact. The internet, smartphones and networking in general top the list of greatest technological innovations. These technologies have not only helped make materials readily available to the youth, but has also made it cheap and sometimes free.
Financial literacy as we all know is the possession of the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions with all of their financial resources. It is quite unfortunate that most of our youth don’t learn about finance and are seen to plunge into financial debt. So many parents also do not have time for their children and so, provide little or no financial education to their children maybe because they too do not know about it.
The youth of this present century can be made financially literate by the use of technology. This is because they spend most of their time using technological gadgets from smartphones to internet facilities, to games, etc. This is obvious with the increasing number of social media users as released by their owners and high traffics to other webistes.
There are so many ways through which they can be educated using technology and they include:
Through mobile advertisements: since the youth spend more time on the internet, making use of adverts on these social media websites and other places they are found on the internet is a very good way of educating them financially.
It is said that what someone sees often becomes registered in the person’s memory and so, through mobile advertisements, they can be educated on spending and investment easily.
Through applications: the advancement in technology has made it possible for so much to be done including building sophisticated applications and expert systems that make use of the intelligence of a human expert. If mobile, desktop or web applications are built with intelligence gotten from a financial expert, it will go a long way in educating the youth financially.
These applications however should not be made too serious in order not to make them hate making use of them. It should be friendly and interactive. Applications that can monitor someone’s daily spending, and maybe give them a rundown of how much they spent in a day, with options of setting limits and providing notifications once these limits are exceeded.
Through videos: researches have shown that humans tend to retain more of an information if it is combined with audio and visuals. This is exactly what videos provide. Making videos that explain tough financial concepts will go a long way in increasing financial literacy.
Technological tools that ease the production of these videos abound and most of them are free. Creating these videos and making them cover various aspects of finance like saving, investing, interest rates, bank accounts, inflation and so on will be of great help to the youth.
Creation of games: the youth apart from the internet, are also fond of games. They spend hours on playing games (video games, mobile games and internet games). In so doing, they learn a lot from these games that remain with them for a very long time. Creation of games that will teach finance will be of great help to the youth.
There are some games that already teach finance and most people have learnt a lot from them. Games like monopoly, cash flow 101, the game of life, payday, charge large, etc. have been of great help to many in terms of teaching finance but most of them are not free.
Creating similar games and making these ones free for the youth either through sponsorship in schools, will be of great help.
There are also gaming sites that provide practical money skills to the youth and help them learn the essentials of personal finance. This will ensure that these younger generation imbibe the culture that will enable them make better informed financial decisions.
Conclusion: technology can indeed be of great help in educating all on financial management and investment. Government and private individuals at all levels should help in educating our youth on spending and investment so as to avoid a generation of carefree spenders that will not only be of great disadvantage to our economy but to the world at large.
