Juan N Corpas University Foundation
Jhoan Sebastian Montealegre Cuellar
Professor
Joan Ovalle
School of Education and Social Sciences
Bachelor's Degree Program in Foreign Languages
February 25th, 2022
Positive and negative effects of the internet on society
The Internet has become the most frequently used media for the past two decades, one
of the most important topics around the world since the 1990s (Alam et al, 2014). Thereby,
the internet has resulted in a complete transformation in the availability of knowledge, social
interaction, and communication, which has made it considerably easier to gather and
distribute information in all forms. No matter where in the world people are, they can explore
and share ideas, maintain social connections and networks, and earn money through different
online platforms just by clicking on a button. However, the internet has generated beneficial
and adverse effects on society.
Around the world, the internet has brought about advantageous impacts to numerous
societies and individuals. For instance, easier access to research information, according to
Dhawan (2020) internet is a vast repository of information, since its introduction, helped
people to easily access loads of free content and come up with valuable research. For
example, browsing and reading books on the internet makes it easier to access information
such as medical articles, educational studies, business articles, scientific articles, and it helps
to create videos, hone hobbies, and find answers related to any topic quickly. Thus, the
internet has become a highly important tool for several people.
Additionally, the internet makes communication quickly and easily for friends,
relatives, and families to connect each other. To illustrate, several websites and applications
such as Gtalk, Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, among others, help people to get in
touch with near and dear people all the time, considering that the internet is a boon for people
who stay far from their family. Thus, these communication apps make it easier for people to
stay in touch with others by sending snaps, emails, and videos and feeling closeness
(Chowdhury, & Saha, 2015). In this sense, the internet allows people to communicate with
each other rapidly and right away.
Furthermore, the Internet is beneficial for people who want to work from home to
earn money. The Internet provides countless job platforms to people who want to work as a
freelancer. In this sense, there are millions of jobs available on the internet in various fields
such as Graphic Designing, Content writing, Marketing, Data Entry etc. Those job areas help
people earn income in the comfort of their homes. In addition to it, there are numerous
electronic retail stores where users can trade for goods, using these platforms to buy or sell
their items to make money (Al-habaibeh, Watkins, Waried, et al, 2021). Thereby, the internet
offers good opportunities for people who prefer working from home.
Along with the internet history, people have used it to entertain in several ways like
watching movies, playing online games, chatting with others. Nevertheless, all these
beneficial services of the internet can make one addicted to it. Whether there is a child, youth,
or an adult, people of all ages can get addicted to it. This can take away their precious time,
that when invested at the right place would have enhanced their productivity at the workplace
(Anderson and Rainie, 2018). Spending hours in front of a scream can cause addiction as a
disease that can affect mental processes as well as physical development. Thus, the internet
negatively impacts people who get addicted to it.
Spending a lot of time sitting and accessing the internet all day causes people to
become sedentary. For instance, people are nowadays more interested in watching movies
and playing games online than engaging in outdoor sports activities. This can bring about a
sedentary lifestyle, which is badly affecting their health and adversely impacting their
personality (Owen et al, 2010). Hence, people prefer spending time on the internet to going
outside and practicing some sports instead of becoming inactive.
Moreover, the internet has caused a lack of human touch. That means people are so
engrossed in online activities that they forget talking to their family members, neighbors or
whomever they want to talk to. When people communicate via typing messages and calling
virtual friends, they tend to lack interpersonal and socialization skills with real ones. Besides,
they lack abilities to interact with family, relatives, and other surrounding people making
their personalities unattractive (O'Keeffe, & Clarke-Pearson, 2011). Along these lines, it is
thought that the Internet hinders social skills, causing a lack of human interaction in a face-toface way.
To conclude, the internet has both positive and negative impacts on society. It has
made it possible for people to access tons of digitized information at their convenience,
enhancing communication, improving jobs from home, and expanding access to information
worldwide. However, the internet has caused negative problems in society such as addiction
which makes people dependent on spending many hours in front of the screen and causing a
lack of human interaction in a face-to-face way, impacting social skills. Thus, it is required
to manage the technology for the overall benefit of mankind, ensuring that robust internet
security is in place to avoid the negative impacts of this technology.
Reference list
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(2014). Negative and positive impact of internet addiction on young adults:
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Al-Habaibeh, A., Watkins, M., Waried, K., & Javareshk, M. B. (2021). Challenges and
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589791821000165
Anderson, J & Rainie, I, (2018). The negative of digital life. Pew research center.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/07/03/the-negatives-of-digital-life/
Chowdhury, I. R., & Saha, B. (2015). Impact of Facebook as a social networking site (SNS)
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