Internet Effects on Children (Essay Sample)

Internet Effects on Children
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Internet is the most important form of information in the modern day society. Since the end of colonialism, cold war era and the disintegration of Soviet Union, many nations in the world are slowly integrating their economies into the world economy. This is harmonizing the world economy into a single economy hence the world societies are more connected to one another that it was some years ago. This is turning the world into a village, defined as globalization. This in turn supports development of other means of communication such as television, radio and the internet. The internet is vital as it connects the most of the people in the world regardless of the borders or regimes. Although there are advantages of internet in the society, it affects children who use it differently. This paper seeks to analyze how internet affects children, both positive and negative CITATION Leu04 \l 1033 (Leung, 2004). A child is simply an individual below the age of 18 years according to the United Nations (UN) charter on children and human rights.
Firstly, internet acts as an education outlet for our children. It contains unlimited information hence it’s a rich source in the provision of knowledge. This enlightens children especially academically. They research and acquire the required information for use in their studies CITATION Bar04 \l 1033 (Bargh & McKenna, 2004). They also become enlightened on many issues affecting the world. Such issues can be political, economic, or even social issues.
Another positive impact of internet to children is that they can connect with many people throughout the world. They get to learn of other people’s culture and other aspects hence get enlightened. They also get friends from far nations a factor that was impossible before the internet era.
Internet has also improved children’s ideas and attitude. Children who use internet in their schools always seem interested to go to school. This is a great psychological advantage to the children as a great relief for the parents. In addition, classroom internet allows the children to interchange ideas and encourages them on how to work together.
The internet has also allowed children to develop faster and in a better way. Online games have allowed the children to compete meaningfully with other children. This allows the children to develop cooperation and coordination skills hence develop mentally.
Scientifically, regular usage of internet enables the child to develop various cognitive abilities. Children develops special and logical problem solving skills, memory, abstraction, concentration, comprehension and critical thinking ability.
Negative impacts of internet overwhelm the positive impacts. Some factors determine why there are more negative impacts than positive impacts in internet usage on children. First, internet allows children to get information. This eludes the idea of hard work and research that was earlier associated with education and learning.
Children access unnecessary and unrequired information on the internet. This allows the children to learn things that are complex and at times, they might not distinguish between what is real and what is not real. Children are also open to cheating and plagiarism in their class work. This comes up as they can access previously posted papers in the internet and in turn use them in their class work. This results to cheating and at times even destroys their grammar and writing skills.
Another negative effect of internet on children is addiction. Many children find themselves glued to their computers. This is a dangerous scenario, as children are required to postpone important activities. Children addicted to the internet end up skipping lessons. This addiction also influences how they sleep as most use the internet until deep in the night. This negatively affects their planned activities in the following day. Such children also develop negative emotions towards other people if the internet access is impossible.
Internet can also be harmful to children in that it provides a lot of information than required. Many children have a desire to learn and know new things hence keep on browsing the internet. This continuous feeding of the mind with loads of information can lead to overloading of a child’s brain. This in turn creates a severe problem where the child suffers from information fatigue disorder.
The internet also harms the children as it contains harmful materials. The internet is not governed by any law, regarding what to upload and what should not; therefore, it contains adult materials. Such materials include pornographic materials, which harms the child psychologically. These acts may make the child try out such acts hence may end up committing acts of violence such as rape or even contaminating virus infections. In addition, violent movies and games may influence a child negatively. This may turn the child into a violent human machine hence destroying the required childhood development.
The inability of children to distinguish facts from fiction due to poorly mature mental and coordination system, makes the child perceive that everything is real and can be tried and achieved by anybody including them CITATION Cho05 \l 1033 (Cho & Cheon, 2005). Firstly, it affects their patience that is highly needed in the human society. This leads to impatience when interacting with other children hence leading to many disagreements. Children may also mentor violence, prof...