The Internet: A Tool That Depends on How You Use It
By: Kristen Jezek
With the influx of media in the last few years, it is understandable to wonder if the impact media has on a developing generation is worth the bad as well as the good. Without current limitations in place on what can be posted or propagated in social media, there are undoubtedly some unhealthy behaviors and thought processes that influence viewers and readers. Children and young adults are gaining access to media and the internet earlier and with more exposure than ever before. Screen time is increasing in young adults (Schneider et al 2012) and with that increased screen time comes more of an opportunity for the bad behaviors and influences to permeate their developing minds. One of the greatest risks for concern a person could argue is the accessibility of information which may or may not be true. Young adults are consistently exposed to messages of sickness, violence, and self-hatred during years critical to their development. However, is the information presented vitally important enough to wade through the bad and come through for the better? I argue you can based on my own experience with internet information saturation.
As a person born in 1989, I was exposed to media and the internet in some respect during my high school years. These years included the advent of Facebook and social media sites that my friends and I all went on. In the beginning, because the internet was relatively new, my parents and friends instilled in me a belief that what was found online could only be taken so far, and that a lot of people could “pretend” to be something else. I saw this evidence with my own friends who presented completely different public personas and had entirely different self-conceptions based on their social media pages. Because of this boundary I had between the “real world” and “internet world”, I understood the difference between what was real and what was fabricated online. The older I got the more information overload was presented to the internet and this ability to differentiate the real from the fake became ever-more important. One day when searching information on hormones I came across a woman who works exclusively with female body systems. She posted an article about certain side effects of cancer and precancerous cells. I noticed I had one of those symptoms she mentioned. I didn’t think much of it because there are a whole host of websites that will spell doomsday on your health just for getting a common cold. I did, however, recognize the power of the internet in connecting people and sharing information. I took the information I learned online and sought out a physician (in “real life”) to help clear up any doubts I may have. (It is worth noting I also located my health insurance information and available doctors with the help of the internet). After meeting with my doctor and running a few tests, it did turn out that I had precancerous cells that could be treated in time before they developed. Without the internet and an understanding of how to interpret the information, I most likely would have let these symptoms slide and ignored them.
Is it worth saving a life to continue the availability of information on the internet and the freedom to which people post? In my opinion, of course! I can imagine a regulation in which the woman would need to be a licensed practicing doctor to express this kind of information and in which case I never would have found it. Eliminating the internet based on bad information is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You lose the good stuff when trying to clean out the junk. The red tape of regulation can create a sense of limitation that may negate the positive effects of a free system of information sharing. While nothing is always all good or all bad, the benefits of connecting individuals with shared experience and communicating information has in many ways outshone the negative effects that could come from misunderstanding the free system of information that the internet is. If, from a young age, children and young adults who are gaining access to the information available are educated in the possible negative effects of being exposed to information online, they can appropriately glean the benefits available to them with this vast network! The key to utilizing the internet effectively is education on how to use it, not eliminating the internet itself. Just like any other tool, it is neither inherently good or bad, it simply depends on how you use it.
Bibliography:
1) Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: Sage.
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