about internet addiction

The Internet and its Consequences

The internet of things and internet usage arrived as a divine invention to the human race. It has been a conduit of enlightenment to human cultures for the past fifteen years. For example, it has facilitated the transmission and accessibility of information, digital communication, and interpersonal interactions, resulting in the massive spread of knowledge. Currently, it has drawn people from all over the world, making it an important forum that, in addition to technical advances, fuels globalization. Unfortunately, it has resulted in a number of issues, including internet addiction. According to Kuss and Mark (22) internet addiction refers to users’ predictive behavior of using the internet everywhere for a proximate period of forty to eighty hours every week per session lasting twenty hours. This paper, therefore, delves into internet addiction with a focus on problems emanating from internet addiction as well as possible intervention measures.

Relationship Problems

Internet addiction is a thorn in the flesh that massively destroys relationships. Unfortunately, the internet users have overlooked at the problem due to the current popularity as well as advanced utility. According to Boyd (44), fifty-three percent of relationships that failed to work allied to internet addiction. For instance, marriages, parent-children relationships, dating relationships and general close friendships surveyed have failed to work due to internet addiction.

First, many marriages have been seriously disrupted by the spouses getting overindulged on the internet. Following this, they have less time allocated to act and accomplish their responsibilities. Observations are that they are greatly affected by the internet hence fail to act in time to finish their daily house chores. As such, “cyber-widow” is an analogy that best describes the spouses since they resort to the internet as their companions forgetting certain tasks including the obligation to do the laundry or visit the grocery. In certain instance, they have forgotten to pick up children from school and only remember to do so when it is too late and only reminded by a call from school (Kuss and Mark, 66).

Secondly, internet addiction has led to children being rebellious to their parents while parents intemperate such reactions as disobedience and lack of respect. For instance, children often spend most of their time playing online video games with friends in close quarters, chat with friends through various communication platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, and hangouts. The consequences are that they forget to do their home works as well as studies and finally fail. Parents, on the other hand, would want the children to avoid the internet which they realize to be time-consuming and would do anything necessary to stop them. Under such circumstances, conflicts arise within the families and poor interactions with the children arise creating undesired family relationships where the misunderstanding is the order of the day.

Thirdly, dating relationships, as well as families, have failed due to internet addiction. The internet has taken communication online where people reach one another and provide feedbacks over the internet through messages applications on their respective devices. In such scenarios, an internet addict as noted in (Gackenbach, 56) forgets to reply their partner’s messages due to their attention shifted to other things online that they find more interesting. The result is that such persons end up breaking their relationship when the individual whose message was not replied feels not valued. Similarly, suspicion relating to “cyber affairs” when an individual spends most of his time online has seen many relationships including those married breaking up. Others commit suicide for feeling rejected while others get distressed for having wasted time on the online dating affairs.

Academic Problems

The current school systems are embracing the use of the internet by buying computers and installing online education materials including student’s libraries. In addition, they end up installing wireless connections for use by those who own their personal computers. Once registered in such schools, the student is provided with school access emails, accounts, and passwords with the hope of accessing all course materials and relevant information sources that can help build the students knowledge. Unfortunately, such options have derailed student’s performances than to better them. In particular, internet addicted students do not use the school provided internet for research and study purposes. Instead, they get destructed with materials they find more interesting and satisfactory to them (Boyd, 55). The issue then becomes failing to cover the necessary course materials, thus, fail to obtain the pass marks required to move to the next level or complete the course. For fear and demoralization which accompany having to repeat the course, the student drops out of school without weighing the consequences of having a future with inadequate education to prepare them for the desired job opportunities.

Nevertheless, the internet is merited as an important research tool for every college students. The Internet in terms of information sharing, knowledge and research is a cost productive platform. However, the internet addicted students engage in irrelevant activities while given the opportunity to use the internet. For example, they mostly with or without knowing surf irrelevant but informative websites, play video games as well as participate in gossip chats at the expense of the recommended internet cost productive activities.

Occupational Problems

Internet addiction in relation to addicted employees interferes with the level of productivity among the workers. This is currently the problem which many business managers have to deal with. A survey reported by (Montag, and Martin, 109) revealed that fifty-five percent of various company executives believed that a number of time employees spent on the internet for non-company activities greatly undermined their efficiency and effectiveness. For example, the addicted internet company employees besides spending most of their time surfing the internet while at home hence waking up late to report to jobs, furthermore use the company resources to continue where they had left. The implication is that they have less time to work on the assigned company tasks leaving the managers with no options but to relieve them of their duties. Hence, internet addiction occupationally has made many employees to lose their jobs and end up in regrets.

Intervention Measures

There should be social welfare programs that inform through creating awareness of the dangers of internet addiction among the users. For example, many people become addicted without realizing it. Hence, through creating such social welfare programs, the internet users will get the opportunity to understand the benefits of time management, prioritizing activities and using the internet for the right purpose.

To manage family problems such as internet related conflicts among parents and their children, the parents should not ban the use of internet instead they should focus on advising the children on the consequences of overuse and indulgent with the internet. Since they are in charge of the devices that the children use, they are obliged to set rules and talk to the children while informing them of the importance and need for such rules. For example, computers used by family members should not be in children’s rooms but at a position where everyone sees whatever goes on.

To manage occupational and academic problems caused by internet addiction, the institutions and the companies should control the material that is only related to the academics or work. Surfing beyond such scopes should be limited by creating barriers including the controlling sites and what an individual is able to access while using the institutional or business computers as well as networks.

Conclusion

Internet addiction is real and it is high time that people became informed of its dangers including relationship problems, occupational problems, and academic issues. Measures should be taken to curb the situation and prevent it from spreading to other likely people who may be intensive users. Thus, there should be online awareness programs to inform and advise the users, parents should control what their children access while schools, institutions, and companies should control their networks to only avail materials in that are useful for relevant objectives. When you buy an argumentative essay from TopEssayWriting, you can be rest assured that it will be credible and top-quality.

Works Cited

Boyd, Danah. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. , 2014. Print.

Gackenbach, Jayne. Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implications. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic Press, 2007. Internet resource.

Kuss, Daria J, and Mark D. Griffiths. Internet Addiction in Psychotherapy. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015. Internet resource.

Montag, Christian, and Martin Reuter. Internet Addiction: Neuroscientific Approaches and Therapeutical Interventions. , 2015. Internet resource.