Health Problems Associated with Computer Use

The Internet Age has become a time in which computer technology has not been envisioned as a luxury, but rather a necessity in many parts of daily living. And as the positive impacts of technology use in the workplace, and education setting, becomes a reality then so does the negative consequences. However, the ability to deal with the negative consequences may be more difficult to deal with for adolescents and young adults who heavily use technology for social media, text messaging, and web surfing. As these impressionable sectors of society learn to navigate their place in the world with the aid of technology, they are experiencing an inordinate amount of

Technology is a double edged weapon, but the negative edge is sharper and cuts the reality into pieces, as the children are building and living their behavior and thoughts with whatever they are exposed to using different kinds of technology. One serious impact is the safety and internet privacy of the children. Pamela DeLoatch in her article “The Four Negative Sides of Technology” added that children may unwittingly share information that may endanger their lives. According to her “82% of online sex crimes against children are made using the social networking sites.” According to their excessive use of technology their lives details are open to everybody which sometimes led to undesired acts. It doesn’t have to be sexual abuse but also it may fracture the children’s self-esteem. Self-esteem shapes the way children think of themselves, if a child is popular in his network his self-esteem will be high, and vies versa. Jim Taylor in his article “how technology is changing the way children think and focus” stated similar opinion when he argued that new technologies are shaping the way our children think, adding that researches came with a conclusion that technology can be both harmful and beneficial to ways in which children think. He also said that it is clear that the advancing technology controls how our brains

The article, “What Adolescents Miss When We Let Them Grow up in Cyberspace,” written by Brent Staples discusses negative influences that internet has toward teens. The author elaborates that teens are far more comfortable with online conversations. Social Media has high expectations to how a teen should act or look. Media emotionally scars teens, demanding them to have clear skin and skinny body. The more people that are connected to their phones, higher the chance of losing relationships. The internet has left many teens with unreal social skills. Real life experiences such as law, teens are not knowledgeable. Teenagers miss out on life experiences that can help them grow into adulthood.

It has become common today to dismiss different perspectives, such as Danah Boyd’s, that teenagers aren’t the ones responsible for themselves constantly being on the internet, but society is the one to blame. Many people assume that teenagers have put themselves in the position of being addicted to the internet, yet Danah Boyd complains in her article, “Blame Society, Not the Screen Time”, that, “We put unprecedented demands on our kids, maxing them out with structured activities, homework and heavy expectations.” In making this comment, Danah Boyd argues that adults continuously add stress and pressure to teenagers, which then results in teenagers resorting to the internet as a way of socializing. For many, the internet is simply an escape.

Aided by the convenience of smartphones, tablets, and computers, the Pew Research Center has found that 92% of teens are online daily, with open access to harmful material that can affect developing minds permanently, and set up habits that can damage their potential for success in the future. An even more shocking 24% of teens say that they are online “almost constantly.” As a tenth grader in Carolina Day’s upper school, I’ve witnessed the daily activities of students who confirm these statistics. To them, navigating the internet is second nature, and that is where the real danger lies. While at school, they are still granted connection to every game, social media site, and free essay resource, without limits. Unrestricted and unlimited access to the internet is negatively impacting Carolina Day School’s environment by affecting interpersonal relationships, stunting the positive development of the brain, and decreasing the chance of students gaining critical life skills.

Ever since the internet became popular, there has been an ongoing debate on whether the internet is helpful or harmful to adolescents. Those who oppose the use of the internet claim that it damages teenagers’ “real world” social skills and distracts them from other important parts of their lives(ex. school, family, job, etc.). This group believes that teenagers need to distance themselves from technology before it “damages” them by means of cyber bullying, obsession, and/or photographs that promote hazardous behavior. The other side, however, sees the internet as a tool that can be both helpful and harmful.This viewpoint is illustrated in Thomas A. Workman’s essay “The Real Impact of Virtual Worlds”. In his essay, Workman breaks his argument down into five “digital norms” that describe teenager’s attitude

Technological advancements have flourished greatly over the last few years and have continued to become a large part of the societal norm, today. With increasing reliance on devices such as smartphones, laptops and televisions, access to information is not just easy but also prompt. However, there exists a downside to the excessive screen time exposure that children are allowed, especially internet exposure. Evidence of the pervasive nature of internet access can be inferred when statistics show that “60% of children between the age of 8 and 17 years” (Subrahmanyam et al., 2001) have some form of access to the Internet. Approximately, 14% of these children also meet the criteria for excessive Internet Users. With the rising degree of internet

Today, the Internet is the center of attention for businesses, governments, schools and individuals around the world. It has produced new industries, transformed existing ones, and has become a global cultural experience not only for adults but for children as well. It is a learning tool used to educate in schools and within our homes. The surfacing of the Internet as another means of electronic communication has had a transformative influence on social interaction.

Aside from cognitive skills decreasing, social development is also at risk. The average teenager spends up to 8 hours on the computer, which is a staggering 56 hours a week (Steven Reinberg). With all the time spent surfing the web or playing computer games, and the remaining amount of time spent sleeping or at school, it conflicts with a student’s ability to socialize. Although there are many networking sites such as facebook, myspace, and online chat rooms an individual can communicate through, it is not the same as face-to-face. Those who spend so much time on the internet begin to withdraw from regular society, becoming isolated because they lose the ability to social interact.

It has become an ordinary sight to see individuals spend hours in front of a computer screen. However, the consistent use of this device may threaten the human health and is straining for the body. According to BBC News, children from the ages five to

The results from the study show that those who use the internet for durations of 5 hours or more experience higher problematic use levels. Also, by using the correlation analysis method, the results indicated that there was a positive correlation between problematic internet use and loneliness, communication, unpopularity anxiety and physiological symptoms. More results showed that male students were found to have a higher level of excessive internet use than females and relationships over the internet were high than those of others determined by the t-test.

The latest video games, social sites, blogs, and etc. seem to catch most teens’ attentions these days. It may be safe to say that parents can rarely find their child without at least one interactive social media of some sort. Parents worry their child is online for too long, the internet may deprive teens of social skills needed in face to face conversation, or the internet is a place full of exposure to the cruelty of harsh harassment from peers, better known as cyberbullying. But with most negatives comes a positive and the internet seems to be one of negatives that come with a positive feature as well. These online communities are good sources for teenagers because of the encouragement they give teens to expand their variety of friends while exploring and learning the necessity of a healthy relationship.

Young adults’ reliance on the internet has developed into an addiction, resulting in teenagers to feel isolated and disconnected from their peers. In an experiment conducted in “The Effect of Social Network Sites on Adolescents’ Social and Academic Development: Current Theories and Controversies” June Ahn “found that longer use of the Internet was related to increased depression, loneliness, and smaller social circles.” The younger generation lacks genuine socialization because of the extensive amount of time teenagers spend isolated in their own virtual world. The lack of physical interaction has taken a toll on youths’ ability to develop social skills and friendships. With a lack of these social skills, today’s youth will experience trouble socializing, affecting their ability to create and maintain friendships. Furthermore, in Keith Hampton’s article “Is Technology Making People Less Sociable?” he reveals today’s youth, “spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online

Technology has become a major part of human activities today. People engage in different activities through the use of technology for communication, traveling, and different devices used in every career. Despite the fact that technology has eased the performance of different tasks, it has a detrimental effect on human health. It has an effect on people across all ages and results in health effects such as depression, obesity, brain tumors, musculoskeletal disorders, and different chronic diseases.

Children are being exposed to technology today more than they are being exposed 50 years ago. Children were only watching television, before computers and internet arrive, but now children are exposed to technological devices more than before because they have unlimited access to their computers and their smartphones. Easy access to these devices brings risks and disadvantages for the children, such as laziness, absent of physical activities, social and psychological problems, biological problems and focusing problems. Children should be followed more closely to prevent the disadvantages of technology.