Content advisory 14+ How does being online affect your mind? It is quite evident that many people across the world spend their entire days on the internet. The question as to why being online all the time is good has become so common today. Let see how this affects our lives.
We can’t deny the fact that internet has become part of our existence, thanks to technology that has made internet affordable and available to everyone today. We engage in online social networks every day to find solutions to issues affecting our lives. Truly, internet has made life easier for many people. It has brought about economic development as well as promoting innovations and creativity. The Internet has made the world a global village and interactions and connections to people of all diversity have been greatly enhanced. But the question here is, is it good to be online all the time? Find out!
How Does Internet Affect Our Brains?
Studies show that as much as the internet is awesome and we need it in our daily lives, being online all the time exposes us to serious pitfalls and it has greatly affected our brains.
Before the internet, research shows that the brain read mostly in linear ways. We would read from page to page and there was an amazing flow of content. You could read an entire book in one sitting. True? What happens when we are reading an article on the website? The results are worrying. There are many distractions. The attention span tends to be shorter than how it used to be. The trend seems not to spare young adults who now only manage to spend quarter time less reading than it used to be some decades ago. Moreover, there is no last page on the Internet.
It’s Addictive
According to a research carried out, four out of five students are found to experience serious withdrawal symptoms whenever there is internet disconnection for a day. The students feel confused, stressed and even panic when there is no internet connectivity. This is related to the smokers’ experiences as they try to give up on smoking. Isn’t this serious? Internet addiction is, therefore, a real thing, especially to heavy internet users. Studies show that they feel depressed immediately they log off.
Dominates Our Lives
A kid can spend more than 7 hours on a screen while adults spend more than 11 hours interacting with digital and social media. This has bad effects on our psychology. It affects our memory, our reading and comprehension and to a large extent affects our overall happiness.
How Does Internet Use Affect Our Self-Esteem?
Today, what do we see on online social media platforms like Facebook, what used to be personal life has now been made public. If you are not careful, you fall into the trap of comparing yourself and others, and the effects must be shocking. Many people have lost their self-esteem. They feel inferior, they feel less attractive, less talented and so on. I’m not saying that we should not share our opinions and ideas on social media, but we can control the extent at which we use such platforms. On the other hand, if you use the internet wisely, it can build your reputation in seconds (well, usually several months, depends on a budget)).
Poor Judgement
Today, we prefer online shopping. Aren’t we? This is absolutely good since it saves our time and energy. But on the other hand, overreliance on online apps can lead to poor judgment. At times, the information we receive online can be misleading. Some people believe that every single information available on the internet is purely true so they don’t take time to find out and they end up making the wrong judgment. It’s healthy you log off your gadget and drive yourself to the store, (if you can) and find out if what you receive online is what happening on the ground.
The Bottom Line
If we can only realize what internet is doing in our lives every day, how it affects our family, education, friends, businesses and the world at large, we can find ways to maximize on the best out of the internet, social networks and all these messengers and avoid the negative part of it.
What I can say is that internet is not good or bad – but it’s powerful. If we allow the internet to drive us in the wrong direction, the results can be sad and scary. If we allow it to take us to the positive direction, we get our lives improved. So, the thing here is not to let internet control our lives. Let’s take charge of our lives, go back to the basics and understand what we need to do in order to get the best out of this powerful technology feature.
===Artem Kovalev===
However, there is a darker side to our constant connectivity. The pressure to be constantly online can lead to feelings of inadequacy and comparison as we measure our lives against carefully curated depictions on social media. This can erode our self-esteem, as we feel the need to constantly project an image of success and happiness, even if it doesn’t reflect our true experiences.