The internet has brought so much revolution in the way we do everything. From the way we eat to the way that we internalize and use information, there is so much positive effect of the internet all over. However, there is also many negative effects of the internet especially on students and young kids as you will see in this short post.
- Over Information
Students are most likely going to use the internet for research and other purposes. However, just try to enter a search for a certain keyword/keyphrase in Google or any other search engine. An avalanche of information will hit you, such that you could end up more confused than when you went online. There is more information online than our brains can process and for the young kids or students, it is easy to be carried away by the wide range of opinions, facts, and information online.
- Social Life Is Affected
Gone are the days when kids would gang up with the other kids in the neighborhood and go have fun outdoors playing soccer, sharing wild stories and experiences, just as they had read in Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven series. Today, all that students and kids want to do is hang “out” indoors checking Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube and other channels. Man is a very social being, always interacting with others. But the internet is now threatening this social order. Students no longer see the need to walk over to their friends’ house to hang out, not when they can do Facebook Live, Messenger, and others. Eventually, their oral communication skills start getting affected.
- Kids Are Becoming Internet Couch Potato
Believe it or not, if they could download physical health, they would. This is what the internet is doing to the students. Where physical exercise used to be part of the school curriculum, now, the only thing students want to do is spend just one more minute online. One more minute changes to hours. Physical activity is fast becoming eroded from the curriculum program of our kids. Because books are now available on the internet, there is no need for the students to walk a few blocks to the library to study. The addiction to the internet is real, and it is only causing a lot of inactivities, which is, in turn, churning out obese kids in their abundance.
- Cheating In Schoolwork
When the teacher assigns homework, students will cheat at will. The internet provides ready answers and besides, there are things to do online rather than sit around and solve problems. Even with plagiarism detectors, teachers are still finding it hard to detect all instances of cheating, eventually leading to awarding marks wrongly. The misuse of the internet has eroded the values of hard work and diligence.
- Dependence And Addiction To The Internet
Internet addiction is real and as serious as any other kind of addiction. When you find that students can no longer think for themselves, that they have to look up everything on the internet, become sickly when they stay one day away from the internet, then you know that urgent help is needed. Because of its mild and general nature, internet addiction does not attract the kind of attention that other addictions do, but it is really all the same.
Conclusion
There are so many more negative effects of the internet for students. Let them take the positives and make sure you do everything possible to save your kids from the negative impacts. Always keep your kids busy with school, home tuition, study homework, outdoor games, and special family times to keep them away from the bad effects of the internet.