Ininternet Addiction and How It Affects Educational Success Essay Example for Free

Ininternet Addiction and How It Affects Educational Success Essay Many people carry out most of their daily activities using the internet, for example, banking, paying bills and trading which has led to a marked dependence on the internet. According to the Center for On-Line Addiction (1998), there are several types of internet addiction: The first is Cyber-sexual Addiction where people get addicted to pornography on the internet. The second is Cyber-relationship Addiction where people make on-line friends in chatrooms and soon the online friends replace life friends and family. The third is Net- Compulsions where people engage in different compulsive behaviors such as gambling, auctions and excessive online trading. People develop an internet addiction for different reasons. Some people become addicted to the Internet because of the social connections they make online. This is because they develop emotional attachments to the online friends they ‘meet ’on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The internet offers anonymity where people can talk about issues that they would not feel free to talk to close friends or family about. The internet also provides a wide array of activities which keeps people online in search of new and exciting forms of entertainment The internet has both positive and negative affects on education. Internet addiction negatively affects the social life of students; it leads to an inability to communicate in the ‘real world’. Lack of communication skills it makes it hard for students to form healthy relationships with their peers at school. The internet can also be very distracting. There are a lot of fun activities on the internet like games and social networks which distracts students from doing their school work. Internet addicts spend a lot of time on the internet which leads to exhaustion due to lack of sleep which in turn leads to a lack of concentration at school. Internet addiction continues to be a major problem in today’s society and measures should be taken to ensure that students who are addicted to the internet receive help in order to continue with their studies. Students should be made aware of the reality of internet addiction and its negative effects on their academic performance. Teachers and parents should also limit the time spent by students on the internet to enable them to achieve better academic excellence. References Centre for Internet Addiction (2011). A Growing Epidemic. Retrieved 5, 2013 from http://www. netaddiction. com Young K. S. (1998). Caught in the net: how to recognize the signs of Internet addiction-and a winning strategy for recovery. New York: J. Wiley.