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. Internet hazards have the potential to invade any student’s life, with numerous dangers that highlight socio economic status, which creates unnecessary social pressures. The devices carried to school on a daily basis range from new Apple laptops to used Windows tablets. According to the American Psychology Association, students who can’t quite afford a new, glossy piece of technology, and therefore identify themselves as part of a lower class display significantly more signs of feeling displaced
Imagine having to turn off all electronics and not being able to use it for a week. Technologies, such as the Internet, have provoked questions about the effects it has to students overtime. Although Internet users have become dependent to the internet, schools should not participate in national “Shut Down Your Screen Week” because the Internet is an exceptional source of information, the Internet is used for instant communication, and Internet users have shown increased signs of social interactions.
Today’s teens mental and physical health has declined in recent years due to internet use. A study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2015 found that 92% of teens go online daily and 24% of them almost constantly. This amount of internet usage results
One of the most arguable topics today is teenage internet usage. Many people think that teens today spend too much time on the internet and should be out in the experiencing life in the real world. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Christy Matte, writer of “10 Great Things Teens Learn While “Playing” Online” says the time that teens spend on the internet is useful and will subsequently enhance their computer skills. She explains the skills you learn on the internet and those skills are necessary in teens futures. The amount of time that teenagers spend online is justified since it will refine their computer skills that colleges and employers will be looking for in applicants.
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.
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
It is unfortunate to say that everything teenagers search for online is not educational or socially acceptable for that matter. For students who do use the internet to their educational advantage, grade higher than those who abuse their privilege online. As McFarlane states, “computer use alone, without clear objectives and well-designed tasks, is of little intrinsic value” (qtd. In Lavin, Korte, Davies). McFarlane states that structure and guidance is the only way to properly utilize the technology in classrooms.
Just like the pioneers, a parent’s voyage to raise well disciplined and self-motivated teenagers is a challenging task. Though the threat of typhus, polio, smallpox, and diphtheria has reduced over the decades, there are still new impediments to surmount. The cyber spectrum is loaded with traps and dangers that many teens bump into at some point in their lives.
If one is the parent of a middle or high school student, there is a probability that one’s child is either engaged in, or spectator to, online behavior that you would find alarming and un-easing. For many teens though this behavior has become just another challenge of youth, and another facet of their lives that parents either don't know about or feel as though they cannot understand to the child’s full potential.
Growth of internet usage worldwide revolutionized access to knowledge and means of communication (Greydanus 452). Many children today are affected by their use of Internet which has both positive and negative implications. This paper argues that the outcome of Internet use by children depends greatly on how it is used and how Internet use is supervised and guided by agents of socialization such as parents, families, teachers, and other adults. There are many positive and negative outcomes of the use of Internet by children. Negative outcomes that can diminish children’s well-being and cognitive and socialization capacity include harmful social interactions such as cyber-bullying, negative emotional and physical consequences, ineffective personal time management, exposure to violent and obscene content, and exposure to commercial advertising and consumerism. Positive benefits include the use of Internet for school study, development of creativity, access to variety of useful information, and communication on educational matters with children in other countries. Children who are using Internet for educational purposes and communications that enhance their development are getting smarter and more socialized whereas children who use Internet pathologically and excessively for other purposes may get less smart and less socialized.
The rapid evolution of the internet over the last two decades has been partly driven by the popularity of electronic communication technologies. One group to fully embrace this new medium of communication is adolescents (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2011). Adolescents of the twenty-first century have never known a pre-internet world, with an estimated 96% of Australian adolescents aged 12-14 years old accessing the internet at some time during the past twelve months (ABS, 2011). Notably, 72% of Australian adolescents access the internet more the once a day (Raco, 2014). Electronic communication enables users to interact with an extended social network in a variety of ways, and provides adolescents with a platform to express their views and opinions in a way that was never available for previous generations. The internet has become an integral part of the Australian an adolescent’s life, with 82% accessing the internet every day for education and homework, to message friends, play games, visit social websites, chat, and email (Australian Communications and Media Authority [ACMA], 2008). The availability of online electronic communication twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, has both positive and negative consequences for adolescents (Bishop, 2013; Jordán-Conde, Mennecke, & Townsend, 2014; Reid & Boyer, 2013). While providing an opportunity of enhanced social interactions
Online safety has become an issue as the internet is available to a much younger user. Mobile phones, iPods and other devices mean kids are online most of the day There is online crime and the kids are exposed to this, which is a problem for them as their discretion is not mature enough. Unfiltered foul and abbreviated language is being projected into the younger generation causing them to use these terms in school, this is ‘tacky’. Many educators are worried as the informal communications common to online chatting is becoming an issue by itself. Teachers believe pupils don't spend nearly enough time on their homework as they should - and 73 per cent believe parents should take responsibility and limit the amount of time their child is spending online.
In contemporary times, the technological advancement known as the Internet, has revolutionized the way in which society is educated. This tool greatly impacts not only the field of education, but every aspect of society. Indeed, Lewin documents, “those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day” (A1), connected to the Internet. This citation illustrates the extensive amount of time today’s youth are online. To that end, the Internet is prevalent in many homes throughout the world and continues to influence the way in which people are educated both in the classroom and even while performing homework. The impact of the Internet becomes evident when one begins to examine similarities and differences between the slew of
In recent years,network technology developing rapidly so that internet bring changes for teenager’s daily life and a large number of teenagers network user is rising. A review by Lau CH(2011 ) found that over 12% of male students and 5% of female students in China showed signs of Internet addiction. Moreover,Data from Pew Internet and American Life Project(2001)analysed that around 39.2% teenagers spend approximately 3-4 hours on internet,as a result,they may feel live in a virtual world. Similarly, Kimmerly and Lisa(2009) have argued that over 90% of children aged 3-18 in the US used computers, and the long time they surf the internet might cause physical health problems to teenagers (obesity, visual strain and insomnia). So the essay presented here summarize the major drawbacks about teenager Internet addiction,including internet addition in games,social media and sex.(Goldberg,2005). In addition,identifying and analyzing the reasons of adolescent internet addiction. As a result,focus on the addition problem and discuss the solutions.
From having good grades, to studying for the ACT, in addition to trying to fit into the social aspect in high school a teens life has never been more hard. And the invention of the smartphone has only added to the amount of stress that a teen has to deal with. The smartphone has created an environment in which adolescents are always connected with those they go to highschool with, through the use of social media. For example if a bully were to be picking on a student at school the student could not just go home and forget about the incident, but now the bully has the ability to abuse that student at any point he/she desires. These types of incidents are creating a new wave of problems for adolescents and their parents, Nojiri Matthew interviewed Rick Wolf (assistant superintendent at Mifflin School district) explaining “The increase in social media use has added another element when identifying and caring for kids dealing with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other mental health disorders, Wolf said” (Wolf). The smartphone is the catalyst to these problems. If you were to take away the smartphone problems such as cyberbullying would be less of an issue. However adolescents these days are given smartphones at such a young age, with no supervision on how long they use it throughout the day, that it becomes second nature to be looking at it every minute of everyday checking their social media profiles.
Parenting now a day is being done via electronics. Children have to grow up in a world where learning can only be accomplished via the Internet. Humans are at the point where the society cannot function without electricity. In order to be a good parent, you can’t sit the child down with a phone and expect them to grow up as an outstanding human being. What people don’t understand is children learn by observing our behavior. Acting as if a day without electricity will ruin our civilization will corrupt the child’s mind, thus making them think the Internet is the most vital object and it is better than anything. Of course, there are issues with allowing children onto the web. Without proper education on the dangers in the online world, children may fall into a trap and become potential victims. In order to have a well-rounded youth, parents must express healthy role modeling. However, teaching children avoidance skills and parents monitoring the web history can overcome the issues with the threats to them online.