3 WAYS HOW INTERNET ADDICTION AFFECTS OUR LIFE

How does internet addiction affect the way we behave and our health?

The internet can cause addiction problems in adults and kids and is one of the most common problems studied these days. According to statistics , about 55.3 percent of people text and use the internet at least an hour, and 20% 3 hours or even more.(Mazzola.) In my opinion,  Internet addiction causes changes in interacting with people,  damages our ability to focus and ,particularly for young people, leads to health and safety concerns. 

With the more frequent use of the internet, interactions among people have changed. The interaction that worsens over time is the parent-child one because there are often discussions on the time of use of these devices. Furthermore, by this time, most people bring their mobile phones everywhere and teens, or even adults, can adapt aggressive behaviors when not having them . Another common device used is video games that can bring violence for their strong and aggressive images (Lenhart). Finally, resolving or changing the attitude and behaviors toward these devices can bring better health and relationships with others. 

Another problem of these devices is the loss of the ability to focus. According to researchers, the devices led to unstoppable distractions . In fact, high percentages of teens admitted that they watch TV, use social media and text while doing homework. (Joyce) Moreover, also adults can get easily distracted while they are working. For example, they may start to use facebook or watch videos. Teens that are addicted spend most of their time using them continuously also until 4am. This can bring to insomnia that damages your mind (Mazzola). In addition, this negatively affects your work and behaviors. 

This lack of sleep and tiredness have brought more and more studies by researchers that have made it one of the main problems of health concerns. Although, insomnia is not the only problem that attracted the attention of researchers. Another principal problem is the participation in dangerous challenges posted on the internet to be considered cool in the eyes of someone that we may not even know. 

Many times these challenges brought death or serious harm. The most affected people are teens between 12 to 19 years old (Lenhart). I believe that teens do these challenges because most of us want to appear cool to the appearance of others because it gives us satisfaction, popularity, and confidence that maybe, before doing that challenge or photo, we didn’t have. Or, another case, may be that if someone more popular does something considered “cool”, teens less popular tend to copy his actions without thinking about the consequences and may put themselves in danger. 

In conclusion, I think that  we should be preoccupied primarily about our safety whenever we want to do something. Furthermore, I believe that we think that we are not addicted to our phones and that we definitely would want to use them less. Most of the time, we enjoy the time we are not with our  phones because we can do a lot of things and we do not get distracted by these devices. To conclude, we know that we should use them less but sometimes those distractions are not easy to put away. However, with a little more control of the amount of time spent on our phones, we would enjoy our families and friends more.

WORKS CITED :

Joyce, Amy. “Teens Say They’re Addicted To Technology. Here’s How Parents Can help.” washingtonpost.com. Washingtonpost.  3 May 2016. Web. 20 Feb 2020.

Lenhart, Amanda. “Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015”.  Pewresearch.com. Pewresearch. 9 Apr 2015. Web. 20 Feb  2020.

Mazzola, Jessica. “Nighttime Texting Linked To Bad Grades, N.J. Study Finds”.  Nj.com. 08 Oct 2015. Web. 20 Feb 2020.