A lot of studies have been done on the Internet addiction disorder [IAD] among students in America. IAD is defined as a people’s confusion to control over their desire to access the internet. According to Saisan, Smith, Robinson, and Segal (2010), students are addicted to the Internet to overcome their negative feelings such as depression, loneliness, as well as physical and mental pressure. Therefore, they want to indulge themselves with social networks and online video games in order to escape from their reality lives for a moment.
They are engaged in social networks to establish friendships with online friends and neglect their real life relationships while playing video games can express their emotions that they cannot express in reality. This research paper investigates the impact of Internet addiction among students. According to Lieberman (2006), interactive video games can encourage students to learn in various aspects in life. Students who play interactive games are to complete difficult tasks. They learn by practising and exploring the pattern of the games.
In these games, they have to deal with different settings and environments. At this point, they have to think and plan a strategy to win the game on the spot. In this situation, teenagers are forced to think at a different angle to find out the best solution for the game. Through repetition, they will be easily adapted to the characteristics of the game they play. Eventually, they will be able to perform well in the game.
However, these games are going to be more challenging as the level goes up so that it will keep the gamers playing.It is a very good opportunity for students to observe and experience the game they play especially through the trial and error method so that they know their strengths and weaknesses (Lieberman, 2006). In Beck, Wade and Johnson’s study (as cited in Boss, J. A.
, 2010), it is shown that playing online video games can exercise the brain, improve life skills and promote the coordination between the hands and the eyes. Tetris is a puzzle game which requires logical thinking to arrange and clear blocks with different shapes like square, L-shaped and I-shaped.As the level of the game increases, the speed increases gradually. This game is created to have a quick reaction to the game when the blocks are falling faster. The brain can work and think more rapidly in this way. Indirectly, it will improve the eye-hand coordination as well as life skills because this game has prepared gamers to solve real life problems.
Addiction to video games can bring a lot of negative effects to students. It can cause students to spend a lot of money and time on games.Lee and Peng (2006) reported a disaster on “August 8th, 2005, in S. Korea where an adult gamer died after 50 hours of continuous playing” (p.
332). The large amount of time spent on video games can affect a student’s physical health. For example, carpal tunnel syndrome is “caused by repeated motions that damage sensitive nerves in the hands, wrists and arms” (LaBerta, 2011, pp. 19-20).
Students tend to neglect their daily routine such as eating, bathing, sleeping and exercising. They are willing to spend all their time and energy in games that they like and ignoring everything else including their studies.As a result, they have signs like poor personal hygiene, lose or gain weight, restlessness and stressfulness. Kieffer and Nicoll (2005) argued that video games with violent content affect students in a negative way whether it is a short period or a long period of time. Students who played aggressive video games for less than ten minutes claimed that they possess aggressive behaviours. Lecturers discovered that students who always play video games are more problematic and less discipline if they are to be compared to students who do not play video games as often.
The majority of teenagers who are prone to video games are usually involved in physical or verbal fights with their families, teachers, and peers. Besides, they do not do very well in their studies and they do not participate actively in school activities. They may frequently be late for their lessons or absent from their classes as they do not show much interests in school. These students also can be antisocial sometimes.
Teenagers tend to mimic the characters in the video games that they indulge in (Kieffer & Nicoll, 2005). For example, Ryu is a karate fighter in Street Fighter, a fighting game.Adolescents might try to be like Ryu in reality and it is very easy for them to be involved in a battle with their peers like how they have experienced it in Street Fighter. It is found that boys consume a larger amount of time in playing these games if it is to be compared to girls. It is very difficult for these youngsters to avoid the influences of these games when they are exposed to violent video games.
Rosen (2011) discussed about the pros and cons of social networking among youngsters. Students who use Facebook very often are found to be more conceited, truculent and less sociable.The excessive use of the social networks can affect their physical and mental health by causing them to be in despair, loneliness and distress. Students who checked their Facebook account once in every quarter of an hour lowered their academic performance in school or college.
On the other hand, students who are active in Facebook are brought into being more considerate and demonstrate ‘virtual empathy’ among their friends who are involved in Facebook. Moreover, this activity can assist shy and quiet students to regain their confidence in socializing through Facebook as they find it more comfortable to express their thoughts.Social networks offer educating equipments that can evoke students’ interest and they can be easily accessed through phones and laptops (Social’s Good and Bad Impacts on Kids, para. 3). Beard’s (2010) study showed that there are advantages for teenagers who use the social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The first and most important one is they enhance communication. Students can be connected with their friends or families even though they are geographically separated from one another. Moreover, they may feel more comfortable to express their thoughts and feelings.Teenagers may be down or worried because of peer pressure, study stress, and financial difficulty.
However, through social networks, students are encouraged by their friends who offer moral and emotional support. Furthermore, they can be easily preoccupied from their negative thoughts. Besides, students can obtain educational materials for their studies and also learn how to use programs on the internet. With the huge number of users in the social networks, there are a lot of different cultures and thoughts. For that reason, young adults are taught to tolerate with people of different race, ethnicity, religion and colour.They can learn how to be open minded and accept views from other people.
Besides, they will grow and think maturely as well as be equipped with technology skills (Beard,2010). Marin (2011) came up with an idea of creating a Facebook account for Cliff Stroop, an imaginary teaching assistant to provide information for students on Facebook. Based on her research, most American students use Facebook as a tool for communication. Therefore, Marin planned to stay in contact with the students to update them about class arrangements and other information even though they are miles apart.Besides, students will be able to obtain information about critical thinking, study skills and even psychology. Using Cliff, Marin can achieve her goals which are course management, study skills training, advisement, as well as critical thinking and student engagement.
Cliff conveys messages effectively and provides notes for students as they prefer reading the messages on Facebook. Moreover, Cliff leads students to useful resources, shares his experience and even writes recommendation letter. ‘Cliff-hangers’ section is created to throw a question for students to think about once a week.Marin did a survey to find out about the student’s reaction about Cliff. Among 257 students, approximately 40% of the students did not join Facebook and most of them claimed that they never got around with it. The remaining 61% who is involved gave a very positive response to Cliff.
Students think that Cliff is a very good source of information and it has study strategies available for them. There are interesting things that are discovered through Cliff. For example, students take Cliff as a friend who can provide information about their studies.Students prefer reading information from Facebook rather than the bulletin board because it is easier to access to Facebook and they can respond by liking the post. Cliff also encourages collaboration among students.
Therefore, Cliff, through Facebook has successfully educated and enhanced communication between teachers and students (Marin, 2011). On the other hand, Siew (2010) reported that students showed signs of addiction to internet and social media based on a research conducted by researchers of University of Maryland.200 students participated in this research and they were asked to have no contact with even one medium for one whole day. After 24 hours, majority of the students showed symptoms of internet addiction such as eager desire, long and yearn for the connection to the social media. According to the study's project director, Susan Moeller, college students complained how upset they were without those media devices.
Those students felt so lonely that losing the touch with these gadgets can be the same as losing their friends and family.Emails, instant messages and social networks became more than a daily routine for students as they cannot even afford to leave the things aside for more than 24 hours. Dr. Raymond McCaffrey said that "They care about what is going on among their friends and families and even in the world at large. ” However, students do not really care about news and they might not even be able to differentiate between news and general information.
In order to treat the extreme usage of the internet and video games, there is a private centre called ReSTART which is located in the United States (Siew,2010).Students, especially females have to be aware of the negative consequences of being involved in social networks or blogs. It is because there are certain risks involved when there is no privacy for users. According to LaBerta (2011), there are cyberstalkers, cyberbullying and sexual predators which are classified as cyber crimes.
Cyberstalkers will track their targets and disturb them over and over again by sending them irritated messages. A famous blogger, Kathy Sierra was one of the cyberstalking victims. She received aggressive, sexual and death threats comments on her blog.In the end, Sierra deleted her blog for her own safety. It is found that majority of the victims are female students in college and most of the cyberstalkers are men.
Another risk is cyberbullying which is a state where a weak person is being oppressed by other people through the Internet. Sending hurtful e-mails and posting offensive comments on a person’s Facebook wall are considered committing cyberbullying (LaBerta, 2011). I discovered that there are advantages and disadvantages for students of being addicted to the internet whether they are obsessed in video games or social networking.These addictions will bring benefits if students use them in a proper way while these addictions will harm students if they abuse the use of social networking and video games. It is essential to carry out a more in-depth research to look at the impact of different types of video games like action, shooter, action-adventure, adventure, role playing, strategy, life stimulation and vehicle stimulation. On the other hand, it is vital to examine the effect of social networking to students in various applications and their privacy in the social networking sites.
