My Rambly Thoughts on Internet Addiction



The Internet and Other Addictions.


    The internet has come to make our lives easier, to make us more efficient and effective in our jobs, studies, relationships, and lives in general. Ironically, this tool which is meant to serve us has shown a side to it we never anticipated to see. It has gone from being a tool that would make us freer to one that has enslaved us.

It wasn’t until 1995 that the term “Internet Addiction” started to be used, and at first it was used in a satirical manner to mock people who felt attached to the use of the internet; however, over the last  decade, researchers have noticed an increase in the pandemic that is the internet addiction. It is now considered to be a mental disorder. Now, using the internet excessively does not necessarily mean that it is an addiction; according to experts, the excessive use of the net can only be deemed an addiction when it disrupts the regular course of a person’s life, that is, if a person seems to be unable to perform adequately at work or school, and if that person’s relationships start to wither due to internet use, then it can be labeled as an addiction.

Regardless of our age, gender, ethnicity, social status, and economic situation; we are all susceptible to being addicted to the internet if we’re not careful.

It is one of my goals for this year to stop using the internet so much. In my particular case, I don’t use social media, but I spend hours and hours watching videos on YouTube, checking my email, and reading book synopses and reviews online. I decided to cut down on internet consumption by uninstalling the various apps I had on my phone to consume media, and I have scheduled specific hours to go on the internet and do what I have to do online. I am doing this not because I am/was an internet addict, but because I want to have more time to devote to things I’m passionate about. I want to start a blog where I would review books (I consume lots of books), I want to have more time to read more and to work more on my skills as an English major. I just want to use the internet intelligently and efficiently, not let the internet use and control me.

To conclude, I’d like to leave these links to two videos I watched about the topic discussed in unit 1, which I found to be very informative.
Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyMqljINR74&t=96s
Video 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOSYmLER664

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