Essay Sample on Internet Addiction

Introduction

Imagine a child dying of malnutrition because her parents forgot to feed her. Who forgets to feed their own child? A couple in South Korea did forget to feed their three-month-old daughter because they were addicted to internet gaming. Undeniably, although the internet is a useful instrument that can make people's lives much more convenient, it has numerous adverse effects of which we need to be aware. In this presentation, I focus on internet-addiction as one of the largest problems posed by the internet. Hence, I believe we need to reduce the amount of time we spend on the internet to curb the adverse effects of Internet-addiction.

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Addictive use of the Internet is a new and rapidly growing phenomenon. New areas of research identify users who became booked on online chat rooms, interactive games and instant messaging only to see their lives become increasingly unmanageable because of the Internet (Kuss & Lopez-Fernandez, 2016). According to Starcevic and Billieux (2017), no single behavior pattern defines Internet addiction. These behaviors of Internet addiction include a compulsive use of the Internet, lying or hiding the extent of one's online behavior, a preoccupation with being online, and an inability to control or curb your online behavior (Starcevic & Billieux, 2017).

There is a need to care about Internet addiction because it is similar to other forms of mental disorders such as alcohol or opioid dependence (Andreassen, Billieux, Griffiths, Kuss, Demetrovics, Mazzoni, & Pallesen, 2016). Just like an alcoholic who needs to consume greater levels of alcohol to attain satisfaction, Internet addicts routinely spend significant amounts of time online. This robs away precious time that otherwise would have been utilized for something more productive.

Studies in Europe and the United States indicate that in the general population, the prevalence rates of this problem are as high as 8.2%. Similarly, countries like China and South Korea have classified it as a serious health risk (Xin, Xing, Pengfei, Houru, Mengcheng, & Hong, 2018). Undeniably, when it reaches to a point where children die because their internet-addicted parent forgot to feed them, then it is a serious problem.

Internet addiction is associated with many negative effects. It breaks families, limits social interactions, leads to depression and suicidal ideation, and contributes to high levels of child obesity (Wu, Lee, Liao, & Chang, 2015). Mostly, teenagers and young adults between 13 and 24 years of age are affected by Internet addiction. Moreover, these children have been born into techie families. Young children with Internet addiction suffer from childhood obesity as they spend all of their time playing video games instead of playing outside. Similarly, young adults now have access to pornographic material and are at risk of being lured into online sexual interactions by malicious people.

Therefore, there is a need that people reduce the amount of time they spend on the internet and this takes resilience (Wisniewski, Jia, Wang, Zheng, Xu, Rosson, & Carroll, 2015). Consequently, individuals will learn to find the satisfaction they derive from online platforms in more productive areas. For instance, friends can meet up and have a chat over coffee or lunch instead of using instant messaging to communicate.

Practical applications of this solution may include, first, at home, this solution can be implemented confiscating children's mobile phones or switching off the internet connection to the home. Hence, they get more time to play outside and make friends. Second, one can set an alarm to alert them once the time to surf the Internet lapses. Third, people can learn to switch off their phones, laptops or Ipads once they get home from work to avoid the temptation to spend a lot of time on the Internet.

If people implement this course of action, children will be healthier, relationships will be stronger, families will be closer, and people's self-esteem will be higher since they will stop comparing themselves with the virtual images that peoples post on social media. Nevertheless, if nothing is done, the society and the world at large will suffer from the loss of human touch (Wisniewski et al., 2015).

Conclusion

In summary, internet-addiction is a major problem posed by the Internet. Since this addiction is similar to other mental disorders like alcohol dependence, there is a need to reduce the amount of time that people spend on the Internet. In particular, I want you to work on this progressively, that is, each day, spend one hour less than yesterday surfing on the Internet. Replace that hour with reading a book, meeting with friends, or jogging. Remember, spending too much time on the Internet may not necessarily kill your baby, but your job, relationship or your health.

References

Andreassen, C. S., Billieux, J., Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., Demetrovics, Z., Mazzoni, E., & Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30(2), 252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/adb0000160

Kuss, D. J., & Lopez-Fernandez, O. (2016). Internet addiction and problematic Internet use: A systematic review of clinical research. World journal of psychiatry, 6(1), 143. DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v6.i1.143

Starcevic, V., & Billieux, J. (2017). Does the construct of Internet addiction reflect a single entity or a spectrum of disorders?. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 14(1), 5-10. http://orbilu.uni.lu/bitstream/10993/29923/1/Starcevic_CN_2017.pdf

Wisniewski, P., Jia, H., Wang, N., Zheng, S., Xu, H., Rosson, M. B., & Carroll, J. M. (2015, April). Resilience mitigates the negative effects of adolescent internet addiction and online risk exposure. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4029-4038). ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702240

Wu, C. Y., Lee, M. B., Liao, S. C., & Chang, L. R. (2015). Risk factors of internet addiction among internet users: an online questionnaire survey. PloS one, 10(10), e0137506. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137506

Xin, M., Xing, J., Pengfei, W., Houru, L., Mengcheng, W., & Hong, Z. (2018). Online activities, prevalence of Internet addiction and risk factors related to family and school among adolescents in China. Addictive behaviors reports, 7, 14-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2017.10.003