Negative Implications of the Internet on Youth

Negative Implications of the internet on Youth

By Arvin Shanker Jaishanker

Introduction

In this modern era of civilisation, internet technologies have progressed so far as to provide many uses and catering for many different age groups especially children. Most children today are privileged enough to gain access to the Internet either in school or at home. Based on a research document published by Ofcom (2011), 91% of children typically aged 5-15 years old are expected to live in a household with internet access. However, children are currently facing many serious issues with internet use because they do not take precautions or protect themselves online.

This report identifies the implications of internet on children including cyber bullying, exposal of explicit content, online predators and health deterioration.

Discussion

Cyber-bullying

Cyber-bullying among children has caused for major concerns not only towards parents but also school officials who play important roles in a child's upbringing. A study which was conducted by a research group from Microsoft (2012) showed that 37% of children are subjugated to some form of online bullying. This indicates that one in every four children is affected by online bullying. Children who are expose to the internet will most certainly be affected by the negative experiences of online bullying when they least expect it if they are not taught to be aware of cyber-bullying or to use reporting tools to address maltreatment online. According to a survey done by EU Kids Online (2012), findings show only 19% of 9-16 year olds who were disturbed or bothered by online abuse used the reporting tools. Consequently, the majority of children who are affected by online abuse either decide to confront their abuse by different means (e.g. parent or teacher) or they keep it to themselves due to lack of user-friendly reporting mechanisms.

Nevertheless, the ramifications of cyber-bullying among children is so traumatizing that cases involving teen suicides have occurred such as the suicide of Amanda Todd. Cyber-bullying causes children to be filled with negative emotion, poor self-confidence and sense of security. Based on a publication by Beatbullying (2012), the long term effects from online abuse on children will bring adverse effects with nearly 20% of schoolchildren being discouraged from attending school, experiencing low confidence and low self-esteem. Children will then develop antisocial behaviour and poor concentration in class leading to low school achievement.

Explicit content and Online Predators

Despite internet becoming a great source of information for children, there are those who distribute sexually explicit content and behave in an aggressive and indiscriminative manner when displaying and advertising them on the web. They pose a great threat to children safety as they can be vulnerable to undesirable content on the internet. According to internet statistics provided by GuardChild (2012), 70% of 7-18 year olds have accidently been exposed to explicit content either through pop up ads, misdirected links or emails. Explicit content or pornography can hurt a children's sensitive development stage and their future growth as adults because children are deeply impressionable so the risk of getting emotionally stunted is high. There are some occurrences that exposure to pornography may lead children to act out or imitate what they see regardless of whether it is unethical since children are young and naïve.

Children who seek social interaction after school hours immersed themselves in social media such as Facebook and MSN. Based on research done by the PollyKlass Foundation (2005), findings show 47% have generated an online profile containing personal information which others can see and contact them. Besides that, another statistic from the PollyKlass Foundation (2005) showed nearly 53% of teens have been in chat rooms and among those, 56% been asked personal questions such as their age, gender and location. This clearly shows online predators are extracting information from children through these methods and exploiting them. Children are naïve to the dangers of the internet and are too trusting towards anyone they come in contact with on the internet. They have yet to learn that the internet is completely anonymous and that anyone can claim to be anybody.

Health and Social Deterioration

The use of the internet by children as they grow up has an impact on their social lifestyle. If they time on the internet is not regulated then parents and teachers will be facing challenges as they grow up. Spending more time on the internet would mean spending less time on everything else including time with family, studies and outdoor activities. Studies presented by Georgiann C. (2011) shows that overuse of social media sites may cause narcissistic behaviour among children. This is caused from constant broadcast of details of their life and promoting themselves on social media sites just to fuel their high self-esteem which normally happens during that stage of child development.

Children also face the risk of developing Compulsive Internet Use (CIU) or internet addiction if they spend long hours on the internet unsupervised. Children are very likely to be absorbed with internet use and the features it offers such as anonymity, convenience, easy availability and affordability (Greenfield, 1999). Children, specifically adolescents are vulnerable to the dangers of developing CIU as study shows online communication services carry a higher addictive potential among them since children are at that stage of learning to social with their peers.

Chelsea C. and James P. S. (2012) claimed in their online article that heavy media and technology use on children may cause minor impairment of emotional and cognitive development. The idea that the internet can change the way children's mind work claimed to be caused by the considerable amount of hypertext and multimedia content children are exposed to online. The side effects to this are lack of focus or concentration in studies, anxiety, depression and the weakening of long term memory.

International implications of internet use on children and IT industry

The internet has been of great interest around the world regardless of the digital divide some countries face such as Ghana, India, etc. Besides that, the appeal of the internet to children is different compared to the children in developed and industrialised countries. It is important to note that despite countries