By Nonso K Iloeje
Discussing the negative and harmful influences which the internet could have on adolescent students has become pertinent.
This is because, in the face of its attractiveness and usefulness, the internet has its pitfalls. Here, the adolescents need to be guided.
First of all, what is the internet? The internet has been described as the information super highway. It is a world wide web which connects a complex of computer networks to it.
The term adolescent refers to that phase of life between childhood and adulthood, approximately from ages 12 to 19 years. It is a unique stage in human development and therefore a very important time for laying good foundation necessary for life.
Undoubtedly, if utilised properly, the internet can be very useful in many ways. It enables us to instantly access accurate information on anything in this world. It has the tremendous ability to make this information easily available at our finger tips, in real time. However, if not utilized properly, and in a guided way, the internet can inflict many negative and harmful influences on adolescent students which can destroy their future. Some of these negative influences are described below.
First of all, the use of the internet can become addictive. It is very easy for adolescents to spend undue long hours of their day on screen-time. They easily get hooked on the entertainment which they get from such internet’s social media platforms such as Tik-Tok, Vskit, Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc. Such entertainments really add little or nothing to their intellectual development, nor their academic and spiritual developments. Constant over-use of the internet can also lead to the development of poor reading habits.
When adolescents get addicted to the internet, they miss the opportunity to read good books. The time they spend on the internet is at the expense or detriment of the time they would have used in reading good literature. Adolescents who are hooked on the internet usually develop very bad writing skills and poor language skills. They acquire the bad habit of bastardizing their English spelling and grammar. They develop the poor habit of spelling words such as “because” as “b’cuz”; “before” as “b/4” etc etc. The internet can also mislead the adolescent with undue exposure to immorality and sexuality.
In using the internet, if adolescents are not properly monitored and controlled, it can expose them to such adult contents as pornography. Unfiltered access to the internet can also lead some adolescents to undue exposure to violence, brutality, internet bullying and many personality disorders. We have had cases of adolescents who get bullied online. Some victims of such bullying have been known to be suicidal.
Unsupervised use of the internet, especially by adolescent students, can lead to undue attraction to internet fraud, criminality, cyber crime, on-line criminal gangs and cyber cult groups. The incidence of Yahoo Yahoo boys is a typical example.
We cannot in isolation discuss the negative and harmful influences which the internet can have on adolescent students without also suggesting ways to curb and control the development of these negative influences. In this regard, our parents, our school authorities and the adolescent teenagers themselves have a big role to play.
Some of these roles include: Ensuring that our adolescent teenagers are properly counselled and made fully aware of the potential dangers and negative influences which wrongful use of the internet can inflict on them. The use of Google to monitor and protect your child’s internet activities. By installing the Google Family Link App on your child’s email, a parent or a guardian will have complete and total control of what his or her child can access on the internet.
All adult contents will never load on their devices. They will never have access to any proscribed sites with adult contents such as pornographic sites, etc. By deploying this Google Family Link App, parents or school authorities can monitor how long their children or students can stay on any App or page (browser), and can caution or warn them where necessary.
Parents can also turn off their children’s internet connection from anywhere. They can monitor their child’s on-line activities from anywhere in the world and hence protect them from in-appropriate influences.
In conclusion, I am an adolescent myself. I can rightly say that my generation of adolescents have been both blessed and also accursed by the internet. Although the internet is very useful; there is absolute need for care, discretion, monitored use, parental discretion, supervision and guidance on its use by adolescents. The onus for exercising this control and discretion lies on all of us; especially our parents, our school authorities, and on all adolescents in my generation.
Nonso K. Iloeje, 15, is an SS 1 student of Mea Mater Elizabeth High School, Agbani, Enugu State, Nigeria. 15-year-old Nonso K. Iloeje is an SS-1 student of Mea Mater Elizabeth High School, Agbani, Enugu State, Nigeria.