Effects Of Kids Interlace With Internet On Their Attitude

Effects Of Kids Interlace With Internet On Their Attitude

Introduction

During the introduction of internet to the world, there were compliments about its abilities. Such appraisals saw its growth in extents not experienced before and many scientists developed interest in the new technology. Everyone was excited leading to the introduction of improvements to the technology to perfect it (White 34). All over the world, everyone started to use internet for varied reasons. While the whole world was frenzying the websites, children were slowly integrating into the usage of the new art in town. Initially, no one detected any harm but as the internet grew to incorporate all sorts of people, contents affecting kids became available on the internet. Consequently, there was an outcry all the world and experts have been proposing various ways to prevent this exposure to children. However, everyone is failing to succeed and one fact is evident, kids are the victims. The following paper is an insight to the growing attitude change by youngsters because of internet usage.

Social Changes

Internet is unavoidable and there are certain positive attributes that are present from the usage of the internet by children. According to a study conducted by experts, effects on kid’s social life by the internet are on their infancy stage (White 90). Young children are the ones most likely to benefit from the usage of internet and cognitive skills of youngsters are the most likely positive attributes that a kid will attain from the usage of the internet. Cognitive skills in discussion herein include good decision-making skills, hand eye coordination, and better strategies. Nevertheless, the advantages cannot measure up to the number of demerits exposed to children by excess usage of the internet. That is, youngsters spend most of the playing video games, surfing the internet, and watching online programs and research indicates the same negative effects that too much television for teenagers using the internet.

According to research internet is causing a change of attitude towards parents. A journal named “The Future of Children” reported that kids are more likely to teach their parents the usage of internet. Role reversal mostly leads to disrespect of parents by their teenage children. Though this may assist in increasing communication between parents and their children, it weakens the authority of parents. When kids use the internet moderately there is no registered effects on their social life. Comparing moderate users and their non-users counterparts it is clear that there is little if any difference in their behaviors (Kirsh 23). However, excessive user did show many differences and one of them is lack of control of their lives. According to research, when a comparison between kids who consume internet products in large amounts and those abstaining from the usage did conclude, the former exhibited inadequate socialization skills and lesser life control.

Initially, teenagers played their favorite video games on television sets. There was a worldwide acceptance of the fact that the games were affecting kids negatively. Campaigns were spreading rapidly to reduce the number of violent video games available in the market. With such censorship of video games, children would sort alternative means. Internet eventually became the favorite substitute and online games were now normality among youngsters. Online games have more graphics and in addition to that, they have more bloody scenes. They allow kids to simulate certain characters and according to the skills of the teenager, they kill as many people, as they want at least virtually (Joinson 77). These scenes change the attitude of the teenagers towards other people and they tend to generate more behaviors that are violent. Studies indicate that in comparison to kids who do not use internet regularly, excessive users tend to be more violent.

Violence might be towards other people but these kids tend to harm themselves too. A study conducted in China and focusing on youngsters between the age of 8 and 18 indicates that brain drain is common among teenagers exposed to excessive usage of the internet. Atrophy is the wasting away of a given part of the body. Causes of such body behaviors include poor nourishment, low hormonal support, lack of exercises, and mutations (Kirsh 45). However, kids using the internet have higher chances of having atrophy in the brain, measured by the use of MRI scans. Apart from suffering from brain atrophy, these youngsters also suffer from abnormalities observed in the brains white matter by scanning. In July this year, Dr. Aric Sigman from the Royal Society of Medicine on an online mail called this report a wakeup call to all parents. Furthermore, professionals are indicating the probability of reduced association with friends and family due to the mental condition.

Deviant Behavior

Online deviant behaviors by kids do refer to a large scope of activities; some are immoral while others are illegal but mostly both. Due to accessibility of information provided by the internet people of different views find one another and children can easily get access to these communities, thanks to the media. Such societies were previously hampered by community constraints, space, and time uses their virtual societies to spread their beliefs (Gackenbach 66). It is due to these reasons that kids who are frequent users of the internet exhibit deviant behavior more than their counterparts who are moderate users. As a result, recruiting teenagers into deviant groups online is common in many websites. Youngsters end up being sexual deviants, hate perpetrators, and self-harm inflictors. Teenagers with deviant behaviors receive segregation upon from not only their age mates but by teachers at school affecting their social life negatively.

Teenagers engaging in online activities are mostly prone to joining sexual deviant groups. This includes people surfing pornographic materials on daily basis and bug chasers who voluntary search for sexually transmitted diseases. These groups will change the mentality of youngster concerning certain crucial aspects on sexual issues. Online pornography is receiving a lot of attention and many groups are coming up in support for the usage of pornography. When teenagers get access to such groups, their attitude towards pornography completely changes (Hamburger 67). They are lead to believe that surfing pornographic materials and engaging in certain gross sexual behaviors in not wrong. Consequently, kids end up becoming sexual deviants and engage in activities that are either immoral or illegal believing the larger society has been wrong all along. A study conducted on basis of philosophy indicated that kids who access pornographic materials do score highly in psychoticism.

Self-harm is another common characteristics developed by teenagers engaging in online activities. Before the age of internet, self-harm groups were uncommon due to segregation by members of the society and many were times they succumbed to loneliness. However, with the advent of the internet, this is changing and most of them are forming communities of consolation. Adolescents surfing the net recorded the highest participation into the groups. Notably, many teenagers are changing the perception about self and in many cases causing self-harm. Reports indicate that it is difficult to use only the internet to persuade teenager to commit suicide, however the presence of internet and its application does play a major role. Ill-intentioned people use such groups to persuade adolescents to engage in self-starvation, suicide, or even self-injury (Joinson 90). In the United States, large portions of the youngsters committing suicide are active users of the internet and according to parents; they had no such behaviors at younger ages.

Finally, in deviant behavior category is the hate groups. According to research, most of the members in online hate groups are teenagers. This is because recruitment is crucial part of the group and is mostly due to the aging of a member. Most of the kids have a good perception regarding minor groups in the society due to values upheld in most modern communities to protect minor groups (Hamburger 34). All of this changes once they become members of these hate communities they come to hate certain groups. Once youngsters develop certain ideas about a given minor group may it have gender or racial basis, they tend to display contempt towards members of those racial or gender groups. This makes them prone to committing crimes against other people and while at the same time spreading hate speeches among their schoolmates and friends.

Violent behaviors

Many teenagers seek to use the internet for the purposes of entertainment. Unfortunately, most of the materials available on the internet contain violent scenes. According to research, before attaining the age of 18, the consumption of violent materials stands at 200,000 scenes (Gackenbach 57). Many of the television programs have ratings and parents easily prevent their children from viewing such movies. However, in the internet, they can access any of the movies they click on and mostly they are fond of violent scenes. Consequently, youngsters develop the notion that violence is part of life. Due to this change of attitude, any time the teenager gets in a confrontation with their age mates they end up engaging in violence. In the recent past, studies are indicating that adolescents engage in active violence more than older people. This is because internet is changing their attitude towards solving issues using ways that are more diplomatic.

The picture portrayed by violence in media is very different from the normal violence. Lots of exaggeration are evident and indicate violence that lack any criticism, remorse feelings, or even penalty. Accordingly, teenagers end up having a misguided belief that the treatment of violence by the real community is similar to that in the movies (Barak 68). Hence, they assume that the real people accept violence leading to them being aggressive. Such teenagers become aggressive to their schoolmates and at times harming their friends. According to a research conduct in Korea between January and June 2010, most of the aggressive kids in schooling institutions are active internet users. That is, the internet changes their attitude about handling disputes with their friends and teaches them that the only way is engage in violent activities. In many cases, these kids watched movies like Mortal Combat and they generate a belief that they can simulate characters contained therein.

Apart from being aggressors, teenagers grow to be paranoiac. Not all youngsters take the character of being aggressors others fear that these characters will haunt them and kill them. They will fear heights, fear water, and fear darkness. Most adolescences exhibiting such behaviors have been surfing the internet and not violent scenes but horror scenes. Websites from the internet is a good source of horror pictures and movies. Youngsters both willingly or unwillingly access the sites and can view such videos or pictures and consequently, they become fearful. Such adolescents develop a mental condition and require medical attention to stabilize them. Reports indicate that many of the youngsters in excessive usage of the internet develop a mental condition and most of the time the condition concerns being paranoia.

Conclusion

Internet usage by teenagers has been changing their attitudes concerning different aspects of life that are important in their lives (Barak 79). Accordingly, they change their notion about different things including sex, violence, and relations. Researchers are advising parents to enforce correct measures to reduce consumption of internet content. There are various ways that parents can use to prevent they kids from dangers of the internet. Notably, complete abstinence from the internet would be unreasonable since kids need internet for research and healthy entertainment. Furthermore, according to research moderate users of the internet exhibit no differences in comparison to those that are non-users. Hence, parents should not completely banish usage of internet by children but instead control it. This will prevent kids from contracting mental diseases such as atrophy of the mind and psychological conditions such as psychoticism. Works Cited

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The book emphasizes on the effects of cyberspace on humans especially the younger generation. Its effect on their attitudes, feelings, inhibitions, and responsibility. It is a good resource to understanding these aspects in this paper.

White, Susan. Handbook of youth and internet. New York: Springer Publishers, 2001. Print.

A handbook on the usage of internet by youths and the implications of this usage on their life. The book reflects on both advantages, disadvantages of youths using the internet, and was a good resource on the same.

Kirsh, Steven. Media and youth: a developmental perspective. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons Publishers, 2009. Print.

The resource provided a review and critique of studies conducted on the issue of youths and media and included therein is internet usage. It gives an insight of many studies conducted by experts on how youths misuse the internet.

Barak, Azy. Psychological aspects of cyberspace: theory, research, applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Publishers, 2008. Print.

The book is more general though it also provides important information regarding the youth. Internet found widespread acceptance and the author note that attitudes and belief are changing.

Joinson, Adam .The Oxford handbook of Internet psychology. London: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.The book examines the revelations by psychologists who performed a series of studies. They have discovered various implications of internet on children. Furthermore, it reveals what youngsters do online making it a very resourceful book.

Gackenbach, Jayne. Psychology, the internet, and youth: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal implications. Harcourt: Academic Publishers, 2007. Print.

The book is insightful on the issues concerning intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal implications of youth on the internet. The writer provides a good resource of viewing the issue in different angles.