Impact of Excessive Internet Use on Adolescents

Impact of Excessive Internet Use on Adolescents. Write a 5250 word paper answering; The original concept of the Internet is associated with research facilities for academic agencies. However, the manner in which the young generation uses this tool can adversely affect their mental and physical health. Research has shown that excessive Internet users suffer from similar psychological problems like any other kind of addicts. Such users experience “technological addictions that involve excessive human-machine interaction” (Griffiths, 2008, p.232). This paper focuses on the addiction to the Internet which is becoming increasingly a major issue among the adolescents. Studies have shown that in the United States, 6 percent of the Internet users experience strong addiction to the tool (Young, 2004, p.402). The popularity of social networking sites involves participation of millions of Internet users all over the world, mostly younger people. Since these sites are becoming rapidly more popular among adolescents to enhance communication and relationships, therefore the need is to focus on the impacts of these sites on the psychology of the users, and the factors that develop addictive tendencies in them (Wilson et al., 2010, p.173). However, studies also prove that the use of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace does not always have adverse effects on adolescents since they use these sites mainly for the purpose of intensifying real life relationships, who are geographically separated, by facilities like instant messaging (Reich et al., 2012, p.356). 2. Literature Review Internet is rapidly gaining popularity among the young population especially for communication with peers.