EFFECTS OF INTERNET ADDICTIONS

Nowadays, Internet Addiction is an important illness that many teens are affected by and most of the time they don’t even recognize

or admit it. Statistics show that teen and their parents use the internet too much. “50% of the teens admit they are addicted to their smartphones, 59% of the parents are aware that their kids are addicted to the smartphones and 27% of the parents are addicted as well.” (Joyce) Using the internet this much causes many problems to teen such as bad social relationships, loss of sleep and the loss of basic skills.

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS EFFECTS  

Due to internet addiction, teens do not communicate in person with each others anymore. Teens have problems expressing

themselves without the internet and struggle to make new relationships in real life. (Joyce) They live in a virtual world where they

create a “perfect” life even though it’s not real. This also influence the parent-child relationship in many ways. First of all, if the

parents recognize the kid is addicted to internet they will probably try to regulate the usage of the internet and it would probably

create many discussions and disagreements. Meanwhile, the relationships with the pears struggle even more. When you are a teen is

probable that you try to “fit in” and sometimes social medias are used inappropriately. When teens go out, they are always on their

phone trying to show off everything they do. This problem affected and is continuing to affect more and more people every day.

LOSS OF SLEEP

Another big problem caused by internet addiction is the loss of sleep.  (Mazzola) Teens spend all their energy using their phones and they don’t even try to gain it back by sleeping. Kids are not as efficient as they could be if they would rest the right amount of time. In my opinion, parents should take measures on the usage of the internet during night. For example, they could limit the time by collecting the phone at a time set together. Teens don’t have the ability to regulate themselves alone, there should always be someone checking on what they are doing since at this age where not capable of managing ourselves alone.

LOSS OF BASIC SKILLS  

Internet addiction, also damages the basic skills such as communication, problem solving, attention and many others skills. For

example, due to internet addiction, teens’ communication skills decrease a lot. Teens are not able to communicate with each other’s

without their phones. (Lenhart) Another basic skill that is affected a lot is the problem solving. Kids live in virtual life’s to “escape”

from reality trying not to think of the real problems. Also the attention is less productive. Since they

spend too much time on the internet, they try to do two things at once and they are not as efficient as they would be if their attention would be on only one thing. For example, using their phones while studying or while they are in class. This affects their life a lot and not practicing the basic skills they will eventually lose them.

Unfortunately, society doesn’t seem to understand the damages and how dangerous internet addiction is on teens’ body and their life.

In my opinion, we should start to have restrictions on internet usage to prevent the future generation from becoming addicted.

Works Cited

Joyce, Amy,“Teens say they’re addicted to technology. Here’s how parents can help.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post. 3

May 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2019.

Lenhart, Amanda,”Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. 9 April 2015.

Web. 11 Mar. 2019.

Mazzola,Jessica”Nighttime texting linked to bad grades, N.J. study finds.” Nj.com. New Jersey Online LLC. 8 Oct. 2015 Web. 11

Mar. 2019.