People Are Addicted To The Internet. It Has To End.

Take a look at your messaging app, and when did you send your last text? Midnight? 2 AM? Well, you are not alone. Today, most teens won’t go a day without their phones. Such addiction can affect teens’ daily life by decreasing their health, social skills, and academic performance.

First of all, internet addiction makes teenagers want to stay on the web more and more, whether it’s surfing on the internet, gaming, or texting. This can result in poor health due to staying up too late. Late-night browsing, texting, or gaming can lead to bad health effects such as insomnia. How can staying on the internet late at night cause insomnia? Glad you asked, and according to many studies from NJ, the blue light emitted by the screens on many technological devices can slow down the production of a chemical called melatonin. This chemical gets produced to stimulate sleep. (Mazzola)
Secondly, internet addiction can decrease social skills. Internet addiction can lead teenagers to be more prone to staying home and staying on their phones, whether it is social media or gaming. Staying home for an extended period can also make them lose touch of how to communicate with people properly. In today’s society, we all know that communication is the most important skill a person could ever have, and if the teens lack this kind of important skill, then they will probably have trouble in their future careers. (Young)
Lastly, internet addiction leads to poor academic performance. According to NJ, 61% of the teenagers that they studied said that they felt like the usage of the internet was impacting their academic performance. In their research, they also found out that the average American teen received and sent around 1500 texts per month. This would mean that all that time of sending and waiting to receive a text is wasted instead of using it on studying for school. Staying up late on the internet also impacted their level of awareness and of course, it also impacted their academic performance. (Mazzola)
In conclusion, I feel like everyone should start doing something about internet addiction. This not only affects teenagers, but the same thing goes for adults and even children. Everyone is a victim of internet addiction.  We should all work together to put this to an end. Whether you are a parent or a teenager, try to come to a compromise with each other and give a screen time limit. If we work together to change these habits, we can all have more time to spend together and deepen our relationships.



Works Cited

Mazzola, Jessica.“Night Time Texting Linked To Bad Grades”. nj.com. NJ Advance Media. 8 Oct, 2015. Web.29 Feb, 2020.

Young, Kimberly. “What You Need To Know About Internet Addiction”. youtube.com. TEDx Talks. 5 Jan, 2015. Web. 29 Feb, 2020.