The negative impacts of internet on teenagers in the United States - Essay Example

? 10 November The negative impacts of internet on teenagers in United s Introduction Although teen use of internet has conventionally been referred to as a positive attitude, yet the potential harmful impacts on the children are often overlooked. Internet has many social concerns for a number of factors that include but are not limited to the internet crime, security, pornography, privacy as well as the virtual community. Risks associated with internet for teenagers are far more profound than with any other kind of media due to the ease of accessibility to the harmful content that the internet provides the children with. Based on the view of about 85 per cent of the parents, the National Altitudinal Poll identified the internet as the number one concern for the parents (Common Sense Media cited in Louge 2). Internet has provided the children with the opportunity to view and past whatever they feel like without having the parents realize it. Internet is frequently used by the American children to distribute sexually explicit material both their own and that of the others that they get to lay their hands on. Sex trafficking and various kinds of sex crimes have increased in number manifolds as the use of internet among the children has increased. “The Internet is transforming the experience of growing up in America. It is also transforming the job of being a parent in America. The Internet brings the world — the good, the bad, and the ugly — to the American family’s doorstep. It brings the ruins of ancient Athens to that doorstep, but it also brings the red light district of Bangkok” (Third Way Culture Project). This paper identifies the various the negative impacts of internet on teenagers in United States. Internet addiction Internet addiction can be defined as a behavior in which an individual seeks refuge in the virtual world in an attempt to escape the anxiety and depression caused by factors present in the real world. A growing population of young people in the US uses internet in order to be freed from the negative feelings. Since internet provides them only with temporal relief from the depression, depression comes over them again when they leave the computer until they start using the internet again. Thus, when they are away from the internet, they are depressed and their senses are revived only when they are using the internet. In this sense, they become addicted to the internet. They know that they ought to limit the time they spend on the internet and yet cannot help using the internet all day long because they experience unpleasant emotions when they are not using it. Internet remains in their conscious sense full time in one way or another. Either they are thinking what movie they would download next, which friend they would reply next or what statement they would place on their Facebook profiles. Excessive use of internet has become a very common thing among the young generation in the US. This behavior of unusually high association with the internet is commonly referred to in such terms as compulsive use of internet, pathological use of internet, problematic use of internet, computer addiction, internet dependence and net addiction. Declining academic performance Internet addiction has many unfavorable outcomes one of which happens to be the negative impact of it on an individual’s academic performance. Because of the excessive use of internet, the child is not able to concentrate upon the studies. Studies demand time and attention and yet are very boring. On the other hand, internet activities are very interesting and encourage one to indulge in them because they are also energizing and intellectual in many ways. Thus, the individual’s craving for knowledge and enhancing the skills is sufficiently satisfied by using internet. Thus, the time that the children should spend on their studies is wasted in playing online games, socializing on the social media websites and downloading and watching movies online. Distorted and weakened relationships Internet addiction is one of the most fundamental causes of distortion in familial relationships. The biggest sufferers of the internet addiction of the young generation are the old people. In the past, old people felt as much part of the family as anybody else did. They were talked to by the younger members of the family and their advice was given due importance and preference in all matters. Young people consulted the old generation while taking important decisions of life, and interaction between the young and the old population used to be a regular thing. Nowadays, as most of the time in a youngster’s day is killed surfing the internet, there is hardly any interaction left between them and the old generation. The old generation also suffers from the exclusion because of their incompetency in the use of internet. Children’s parents’ time is spent on work but the grandfathers and grandmothers don’t have any such business left in their lives. To make it worse, the average life expectancy has increased over the years which although, seems to be a fancy idea in the first place, yet is more than a curse for the actual survivors. Old people today get to live longer, but life loses its meaning and significance when they are not paid due attention and are made to feel like extra and abandoned. Today, with more and more youngsters developing relationships online and choosing their marital partners for themselves accordingly, old people are hardly given an opportunity to influence their decision with their valuable pieces of advice. Obesity Internet addiction is also a causal factor for the increasing trend of obesity among the young people in the US. As the American society has modernized, people have started to consume the processed and inorganic foods much more than organic foods. Chips, processed meat, burgers, patties, chocolates and ice-creams are more popular amongst the American people than fresh fruits and vegetables. Internet happens to be one of the sources of the immense popularity of the inorganic diet amongst the young American generation. Fast food is a product of the popular culture which has spread primarily through the TV and the internet. Links to the fast food advertisements can be found on unexpected places that tempt the young generation to want them even when they are on a diet plan. Cultivation of negative personality traits Internet addiction is causing the young American generation to develop negative traits in their personalities. In their attempt to hide their negative activities from their parents, children tend to lie to their parents. To see the porn, they have to seek a corner in the home where they can be away from the gaze of their parents. When investigated, they lie in order to be safe. Lying becomes a habit, and thus, the children develop false personalities. Lying and betraying becomes an essential component of their personalities. Internet addiction leaves little energy in the children for doing constructive works. Long hours spent on using the internet causes sleep deprivation. Freedom Internet addiction has played a cardinal role in drawing the children away from parental supervision and guidance. In the past when internet was not their, parents used to have much more control over the children than they have now. Parents used to have a check upon the things children buy. Today, children have frequent opportunities to shop online. They can have anything they want without having to go out and shop them. With the availability of internet to the children, parents may not realize when their child bought a sex doll. Addiction to online gaming American children are increasingly becoming addicted to the online gaming. Online gaming has grown as an industry in the past decade due to the immense interest young population shows in them. Till 2013, the gaming industry is expected to reach a total revenue of $19 billion (Metascape News). Chen et al conducted a research to study the effect of the online gaming upon the life satisfaction of the players (Metascapa News). They found that the gamers’ life satisfaction was being negatively impacted by the neuroticism. In addition to the general negative impact on the gamers’ satisfaction, neuroticism also negatively affects the gamers; subjective well being. Negative learning Youtube in the contemporary world is the richest source of information for a common man. There are hundreds of thousands of videos available on Youtube, each one addressing a different subject. You type a phrase in the search bar, and hundreds of videos about that are there right before your eyes. Although Youtube is generally adored for the convenience it has provided the users with, it is potentially the most dangerous source of information if the user has negative intentions. The videos uploaded on Youtube have the special quality of being demonstrative. They are so rich in information that if an individual follows as directed in the video from start to end, he/she can become the expert in that subject and acquires the capability to spread the skill to others in his circle of friends or community. There are innumerable negative subjects that Youtube offers guidance on. A young boy that has been denied association with bad company by his parents, can learn how to use the heroin sitting in his bedroom. A boy that is not taught doesn’t know how to burn or fill the heroin and such other drugs into the cigarette, but Youtube teaches the skill so nicely that one can do it professionally without having gained any practical demonstration before. Cultivation of racism Youtube is also inculcating racism in the young generation. In the increasingly multicultural society that we have today, racism is abhorred in any way. People displaying racism in any form are taken to task. Racism is forbidden at all forums. With such overt restrictions placed on racism, people find Youtube a good forum to release their frustration. The videos in Youtube are followed by an endless session of comments. These comments are generally race-oriented. If there is a video discussing some aspect of a particular religion, people would comment on that religion and call the people associated with that religion fools, anarchists and idiots. Thus, although racism is being suppressed in all forms practically in the society, online forums like Youtube are still providing the young generation with an opportunity to flare up their racial notions and hence, keep racism alive in one form or another. Sexting Sexting is a growing activity of interest among the teenagers in the US. Sexting is the act of sending and receiving nude photos via cell phones, emails and social media websites to one another. In a vast majority of cases, internet facilitates sexting even if the photos are forwarded or received through the cell phone. Availability of the internet connection has become a fundamental characteristic of the mobile phones that are coming in the market nowadays. Thus, teenagers don’t even need computers to do sexting. A mobile phone with an internet connection suffices. Internet is also a fundamental means of the spread of sexting even if the photos were originally exchanged through the MMS service. The photos can be easily moved from the memory of the cell phone to that of the computer and can then be uploaded on the internet on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and several other websites so that the photos get exposed to the whole world. This has happened in a lot of cases in the past. In the survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, it was found that 20 per cent of the teenagers have either forwarded nude photos of themselves to their friends (Lithwick). This speaks of sexting in terms of a new epidemic in the US. Multiple Cases of Sexting The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department reported the act of four teenage boys from Yucaipa that sent several semi-nude and fully nude photos of their 8 class fellow girls between 14 and 15 years of age on the internet (Kelly). Arden Wiltshire, the spokesman of the sheriff said, “The girls were taking photos of themselves and sending them to their friends. They were voluntarily doing this, but it got out of control and the photos began circulating and someone posted them on the Internet” (Wiltshire cited in Kelly). (Lithwick) reports a number of cases of sexting in the US. In January 2009, three girls in Greensburg, Pa. between 14 and 15 years of age sexted their boyfriends. The boyfriends who were sent the nude photos were charged for child pornography. In another case, a teenager from Indiana sent photos of his genitals to the girls in his class and thus acquired felony obscenity charges. These young criminals have been registered as sex offenders for a long period of time which ranges to decades in some cases. Similar cases of sexting have also been reported in other states of the US including New Jersey, Connecticut, Alabama, New York, Florida, Wisconsin and Utah. “[J]ust because you can do a thing, does not necessarily mean you should do it. In this tech, gadget crazy world, things like self nude photos have a tendency to come back to haunt you. If not now, then maybe a few years down the road” (Osborne). The experience of jail Being charged for sexual offence and getting jailed can be potentially harmful for an individual specially when he/she is in such an early phase of life as the teenage. Life in the prison is undoubtedly pitiable, but it doesn’t get any better even when the individual comes out of the jail. Factors causing the depression change in nature, but they never altogether diminish. The guilt only grows into a more severe form as the time passes by. Particularly when girls involved in sexual offense reach adulthood, men are reluctant to marry them because of their poor reputation. Even if they do get married, they fear that their children would not be pleased to find out what their parent had done ten or twenty years back. “They don't realize that in California it can get you up to three years in prison, a $2,500 fine and lifetime registration as a sex offender if you are caught creating child pornography… [K]ids have to understand that this stuff will haunt them the rest of their lives. When you are 80, it will still be there for your kids and grandkids to see” (Morrow cited in Kelly). Despite all the unfavorable consequences for the offensive children and their families, there has to be accountability for such heinous crimes in order to discourage the children from indulging in such activities. This exposes not only children to numerous challenges for their whole life, but also makes it very challenging for the authorities as well as the people related to these children to cope with such dilemmas. Chatting The communication teenagers have with the anonymous entities in the chat rooms and blogs are extremely risky. (Whitlock et al) have found a positive link between such behaviors among the teenagers as eating disorders and self-injury and their association with and participation in the virtual communities. Chatting teenagers have a common practice of resorting to the age-specific, location-specific and sex-specific chat codes when they want to exchange the information about their identity. In a country-wide poll, it was found that 50 per cent of the teenagers age between 13 and 18 frequently talk to people on the internet whom they have never met personally in the whole life, and another 33.33 per cent have met people face-to-face only after getting introduced to them on the internet (Polly Klaas Foundation). 12.5 per cent of the respondents indicated that they had been betrayed in the online chatting for the person they had had chat with turned out to be an adult in the real life contrary to their expectations of him/her as a youngster. Fake identities Producing fake identities is a common practice on the internet. People using such social media websites as Facebook and Twitter tend to decline the friend requests of those that have a tendency to cause them some kind of harm if they gain access to the users’ personal information including the cell phone number, present address, occupation and other specific details. In such cases, the facility of adopting false identity helps the supposed offenders a lot. It is almost impossible to find out whether the identity of an individual on the social media website is real or fake. It is a common trend among the boys to be quite welcoming and inviting towards the friend requests of the girls. Therefore, the offenders change their gender and create a profile as a female, and resend the friend request to the boys. The boys generally accept such requests with an intention to evict the individual from the friend’s list if it turns out to be a fake personality, but often it is too late after the friend’s request has been accepted. Having retrieved the personal data, the offenders use that to blackmail the users. People can be blackmailed in a number of ways. They can be involved in the cases of fraud and sex offense. “Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often ?t a model of statutory rape—adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers—than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting” (Wolak et al. 111). Children that send their personal information on the social media websites increase their vulnerability to acquire aggressive sexual solicitations. These kinds of solicitations may not necessarily be based on the sexual advances made by the molesters. The online molesters also use the online conversation with the children to seduce them in an attempt to gain their confidence and develop trust with them. Things that follow are sexual conversations and in-person meetings between the children and the molesters. Hence, the interaction that commences online gradually results into offline meetings between the molesters and the children where they have sex. However, a vast majority of the young users of internet in America are aware of such cases and tend not to indulge in sexual conversation with the strangers, thus making those that do it the atypical internet users. Chatrooms Children are exposed to the aggressive sexual solicitations in the chatrooms as well. “Chatrooms allow for immediate, direct communications between participants, and many of those geared to adolescents are known for explicit sexual talk, sexual innuendo, and obscene language” (Wolak et al. 116). Such an environment is very pleasing and tempting for the online child molesters. Juveniles visiting the chatooms are at increased risk of molestation than others. Chatroom visiting juveniles frequently have issues with their parents, and suffer from anxiety, loneliness and sadness. Juveniles that are shy, lonely and outcast in the real life tend to seek refuge in the chatrooms (Subrahmanyam et al.). Children find chatrooms convenient to interact with others since they provide the children with the opportunity to socialize without getting exposed to the mockery, but chatrooms expose the juveniles to other kinds of problems. The conventionally held belief that the stereotypical predators are responsible for the sexual offence, assault and violence to the children going online is far from true. A vast majority of the sex crimes that are commenced online are caused by adult men that look for adolescents with a view to first seducing and then meeting them for sexual encounters. These offenders are traditionally charged with the offence of the statutory rape which is a kind of nonforcible invitation towards sex made to the juveniles that lack the maturity to take informed decisions. Many juveniles are not developmentally ready to deal with the invitations that are sexually explicit which they come across in the chatrooms. Children that are most vulnerable to the risk of sexual offence are the ones that hold sexual interest in the same sex, have experienced the sexual abuse in the past or have a special aptitude for risky activities. Pornography All that seeing porn on the internet today requires a child to type the word “sex” on the search bar of the search engine and press enter, and hundreds of thousands of links to sexually explicit material pop up. When the child clicks one of the links, the screen displays the biggest possible joke on the face of the Earth. The child who is being driven crazy by his/her lust and thirst for sex sees, “this site contains sexually explicit material, please don’t press “Enter” if you are not 18”. Nothing can be funnier than that. If the child was so concerned about being underage, he/she would never have got there in the first place. There are some 40 million Americans that are daily visitors of the porn sites and nearly 40 per cent preteens and teenagers in the US browse the sex websites willingly or otherwise annually (DeAngelis). London School of Economics (cited in Louge 2) performed a research in which 90 per cent of the children from 8 to 16 years of age were found to be regular visitors of the porn sites. The saddest part of the story is that a vast majority of these children ended up visiting a porn site unintentionally. There has been very limited research on the effects of viewing porn online upon the juveniles and teenagers because of several reasons. In order to be able to distinguish between the hype and the reality, a lot of research needs to go into the investigation of viewing porn on the psychology of children. Nonetheless, educationalists and psychiatrists commonly consent that viewing porn on the internet yields all but good results. “We don't really know, but we suspect that exposure to, say, 10, 20, 30,000 pages of pornography may bias a young person in terms of what they consider a normal relationship” (DiClemente cited in DeAngelis). Control and conclusion “[T]he Internet has become a highly effective and profitable means of distributing sexually explicit material, as well as a sophisticated channel for compulsive sexual behavior, sex trafficking, and sex crimes” (Louge 2). In order to control the children from becoming internet addicts, there is dire need for the adults, specially the parents and the guardians to identify the traits of the young population that expose them to the risk of online addiction. One of the fundamental traits of the young population that increases their tendency to become internet addicts is the emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence predicts the children’s tendency to use internet excessively and become addicted to the online games. Moreover, children that have natural deficiency in the ability to express themselves and read are more likely to display the internet addiction behavior. Internet addiction, addiction to gaming as well as gambling are all etiologically related to one another and are not three different matters. “The idea that Internet addiction, online gaming, and online gambling may be part of a broader proneness-toward-dysfunctional-behavior has implications for prevention and intervention” (Metascape News). Being curious about sex is a natural human behavior and is a necessary part of the process of development, yet it can generate many negative consequences if the individual’s activities lack supervision of a mature and experienced guardian or parent. Seeing internet porn as a means to deal with this natural curiosity is like closing the eyes before the danger, but the danger would not recede anyway. Viewing porn on the internet is wrong and objective measures need to be taken in order to prevent the children from doing this. Nevertheless, no matter how hard the parents may try, they can never completely ensure that their child is protected against such activities because internet and particularly sexually explicit material is omnipresent in the present age. “When teenagers are old enough to be interested in sex, they are competent enough to find ways to access Internet porn. [Hence] our research is motivated by educating young people rather than protecting them” (Peter cited in DeAngelis). Hence, educating the children against the negative effects of viewing porn as well as doing all other objectionable activities on the internet is all that can be done. References: DeAngelis, Tori. “Web pornography's effect on children.” American Psychological Association. vol. 38. no.10. Nov. 2007. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . Kelly, David. “Yucaipa teens cited for 'sexting' nude photos of classmates.” Los Angeles Times. 15 Apr. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . Lithwick, Dahlia. “Textual Misconduct.” 14 Feb. 2009. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . Louge, Nathalie. “Adolescents and the Internet.” Oct. 2006. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . Metascape News. “Youth Internet Use: Risks and Opportunities: Negative Aspects of Internet Use.” 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . “Polly Klaas Foundation.” 2006. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . Subrahmanyam, K., Greenfield, P. M., & Tynes, B. “Constructing sexuality and identity in an online teen chat room.” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. vol. 25. (2004): 651-666. Third Way Culture Project. “The porn standard: Children and pornography on the Internet.” 2005. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. . Whitlock, J. L., Powers, J. L., & Eckenrode, J. “The virtual cutting edge: The Internet and adolescent self-injury.” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. vol. 42. (2006): 407-417. Wolak, Janis; Finkelhor, David; Mitchell, Kimberly J. and Ybarra, Michele L. “Online “Predators” and Their Victims.” American Psychological Association. vol. 63. no. 2. (2008): 111-128. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-632111.pdf. Read More