A new epidemic has fallen over America and is spreading like wild fire across the states as more and more fall victim to its claws. That epidemic is known as internet addiction which many of today’s youths are prone to due to the widespread usage of technology. Excessive use of the internet has proven hazardous to the generation because it decreases cognitive ability, impairs social development, and increases health problems. Since the current American society relies heavily on technology and web searches through google, the internet has become a necessary essential and making addiction almost inevitable.
Those born into this digital dependency are at a high risk for cognitive impairment. Nicholas Carr, the author of the article, Does the Internet make you more Dumber? which was published in the Wall Street Journal, writes that those who spend more time on the internet compared to those who didn’t comprehended less and lacked focus, appearing to be very distracted and having a hard time concentrating on trivial problems. This occurrence is caused by the information overload the internet presents and causes users to become scatterbrained instead of staying focus (Nicholas Carr). An experiment was conducted at Standford University’s Communication Between Humans and Interactive
Media Lab, where a group of researchers gave multiple cognitive tests to 49 people who were heavy media multitaskers and to 53 people who were media multitaskers. The results were shocking. The 49 heavy multitaskers, did poorly in every test given and it was discovered that they couldn’t even multitask at all (Nicholas Carr). Carr mentions that the internet enables the ability to work on more than one project to another through rapid shifts of a finger clic...
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...onal functioning of the brain and the person. The lack of sleep can make the individual susceptible to diseases and infections because the immune system is lowered (Health Problems).
In conclusion the internet is hazardous to the growing youth because it can cause lasting problems cognitively, socially and physically.
Works Cited
Alex. Top 4 Health Problems Caused By Computer Use. 31 March 2008. 11 September 2011.web.
Barbara Jamison. Obsessive Internet use Poses Risk of Isolation, Depression, Researchers say. 13 June
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Familial Problems. 23 August 2011 .web.
Health Problems. 23 August 2011.web
Nicholas Carr. Does the Internet make you Dumber? 5 June 2011. 11 September 2011.web.
Social Problems. 23 August 2011.web.
Steven Reinberg. U.S Kids Using Media Almost 8 Hours a Day. 20 January 2010. 20 September 2011
According to www.telegraph.co.uk, “[y]oung people aged between 16 and 24 spend more than 27 hours a week on the internet.” Certainly this much internet usage would have an effect on someone. What exactly is the effect of using the internet too much? Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that we are too reliant on the internet and it is making the us dim-witted and shortens our attention span. While Clive Thompson’s article “Smarter than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better” states that technology is not only a collection of knowledge, it also a method of sharing and recording our own knowledge. I fall between both Carr and Thompson. I agree with car on his points of us being too reliant on the internet but disagree when he states that it is making us less intelligent. Meanwhile, I also support Thompson’s statement that the internet allows us to assimilate vast amounts of knowledge but disagree with his opinion on how we should be reliant on
According to Li, O’Brien, Snyder, and Howard (2016), problematic internet use may lead to serious psychosocial dysfunction and has resulted in a proposed diagnostic criterion for the DSM-5 in order to assess the disorder. In the United States, 6% to 11% of internet users are problematic internet users. Researchers, in fact, compare problematic internet use to the assessed criteria for gambling and internet gaming disorder. They have also concluded that college-aged teens and young adults are at most risk due to the availability of internet access around them and the direct relationship between the internet and education. Symptoms include impaired physical health such as obesity or sleep disorders, psychological distress, and behavioral problems. Students may also experience more interpersonal problems and worse school and work performance.
It not only affects memory and motor skills but it also affects the body in general. Lack of sleep has shown to weaken your immune system, make a person more vulnerable to common viruses, be a cause of obesity, cause high blood pressure and be a link to depression. (Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Body). It is not good for the brain to get very little sleep, but it is also very dangerous for the body. If person body is sick, or they are battling with depression then there writing process is going to be affects. Nobody has the motivation to write a essay if they are down with the flu, and depression has been a correlation to students doing poor in
It is very rare to find humans who do not multitask. As studies show, “that switching between two tasks can add substantially to our cognitive load, impeding our thinking and increasing the likelihood that they will overlook or misinterpret important information.” (Carr 133) As Nass explains the difference between high multitaskers and low multitaskers. High multitaskers are people who are constantly using many things at once when it comes to media.
The internet is shaping the way we think in more ways than one, and according to Carr (2008), it is suggests that the internet can lead to intellectual laziness. Depending on the internet as a source for information leads to an artificial intelligence. Carr also believes the media is always shaping how we think Carr (2008). Although Carr might not be the most credible due to his augment relying mostly on testimonial evidence, he has a good point. Imagine for a moment sitting in a class room and a professor asks a question. Some students will be right, and others will be wrong which leads to an opportunity for learning. However, if every student were to google the answer to that question each and every student would be correct. See the problem? With reliant use of the internet for information there is no room for creativity or learning.
"Impact of Media Use on Children and Youth." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2003. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
The internet is an essential tool in everyday life. The age of a person does not matter, because whether they are a teen, an adult, or an elderly person in order to stay in contact with others they will need the internet. However, the internet is dangerously addictive. Some studies say that the internet is not the addiction, but the means of getting to the addiction. The more believable of the two studies are the ones that discuss the internet being the addiction. Curtis stated in 2012 that reports on the brain are showing that people who excessively use the internet show abnormalities similar to people who suffer from substance addiction. Curtis also stated that internet addiction was becoming
In Greg Beato’s article “Internet Addiction” originally published in august, september 2010 in to Reason magazine he argues that internet addiction is a problem in our society today. Internet addiction should be reported in the Diagnostic and statistic manual of mental disorder (DSM). It is a huge problem, he also says that internet is like narcotic drugs and very addicting. He states that if ones use Google for few minutes only it leads us to spend more than a few minutes on the internet and it turns in to spending hours. Beato refers that University of Maryland did a group study for 24 hour and all the students went crazy without their phones and iPods, one girl admitted that she is an addict. The students were anxious and miserable. He also says that one kid killed his parents because they took away his Xbox. Internet also leads to death of people, therefore it is a problem and we should put it on to the DSM.
Pitman, S. (2008, August). The impact of media technologies on child development and wellbeing. Retrieved from http://www.ozchild.org.au/userfiles/docs/ozchild/research-papers/ImpactOfElectronicMedia.pdf
Although, it is unfair to blame technology because of the content people put on it. Greenfield, Patricia, and Zheng Yan put it best when they say, “Just as we cannot ask whether a knife is inherently good or bad, we cannot ask whether the Internet is good or bad; we can simply document how it is used.” So, as much as some may blame the Internet for its problems, the real war is against the substance within the Internet (Greenfield, Patricia, and Zheng Yan 390-93). And thus comes the main argument against the Internet, is the composition of the Internet harmful to children?
These in turn can cause weight gain in adolescents and may take the form of cardiovascular diseases in adulthood. I will also shed light on some of the other long- term health effects of sleep deprivation such as type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and gastrointestinal disorders. I will also point out that sleep disruption may also be associated with the increase in the risk of certain cancers and even death. This is because excessive exposure to light at night decreases production of melatonin (sleep hormone) which can lead to acceleration of tumor growth, that may have carcinogenic
Lack of sleep affects us many different ways in our daily lives. Think of yourself as a battery, and you’re using all the energy. After you 're done using the energy, you have to charge it. Humans are just like batteries when it comes to sleep. We use all of our energy in the day time doing our daily activities. Like a battery, if you don’t rest or charge yourself up, you’re not going to function very well. It is necessary to have a satisfying amount of sleep. Lack of sleep will affect you in ways such as: mood swings, loss of focus, change in behavior, and difficulties in everyday tasks.
This online article was useful for my research because it showed how over use of technology impact on people. This article also gives background information on internet addiction and internet dependence. The source is one of the best sources used in my research due to the fact that it had some of the basic information about the harmful effect of becoming so much dependent on technology.
Internet has become a new equipment to improve violence and disobedience. Teenagers can have easy access to the pornography sites or adult’s chartrooms. As a matter of fact recent researches has shown that Despite the potential negative effects on children using the Internet, more than 30% of surveyed parents had not discussed the downside of Internet use with their children (Internet Advisory Board, 2001), and 62% of parents of teenagers did not realize that their children had visited inappropriate Web sites (Yankelovich Partner...
The internet is full of many things that could make us smarter. However, the internet is full of websites, games, even photos that could very likely have a negative effect on children and their behaviors. Also their education, speech could become affected and they could start doing badly in school or start cursing at a young age. Another thing is that their attitude towards life changes, instead of seeing it as their own giant happy playground they can view it as a very bitter and cold place and start looking, feeling, and talking negatively.