Prilly Highlights Social Media Effects and the Need for Information Evaluation

Actress, entrepreneur, and activist Prilly Latuconsina has highlighted the effects of social media use and the importance of building a habit of evaluating information to minimise its negative impacts. During a talk show titled ‘Satu Abad Rahmi Hatta 1926-2026’ in Jakarta on Wednesday, Prilly noted that the ease of accessing information via social media makes society, especially young people, easily influenced by trends and opinions. ‘Now there are so many social media platforms. There’s Instagram, TikTok, Threads, X. We swipe once and there’s one piece of information, swipe again and there’s another news story,’ she said. The presence of digital platforms allows information to circulate quickly and be accessed by a wide audience. According to Prilly, this condition presents its own challenges. ‘I think the challenge is that we become a generation that is easily influenced by the atmosphere, easily influenced by news, even though the news might not be relevant to the values we want to uphold in our lives,’ she said. ‘Social media seems to push us to be a generation that must be successful quickly, must achieve, must be capable of many things. We tend to want to try everything, but end up losing direction,’ she added. ‘I always ask myself, is this in line with the values I want to uphold? Is this in line with the direction I want to go?’ she said. Furthermore, she stated that technological advancements should be used to bring about positive outcomes. ‘Everyone has intelligence, everyone has cleverness. But not everyone has the honesty or discipline to steer that intelligence towards something better,’ Prilly remarked. Speaking at the commemoration of the centenary of Rahmi Hatta 1926-2026, Prilly also encouraged young people to emulate the steadfastness and integrity of Rahmi Hatta.