The Impact of Overuse of the Internet

According to a research conducted in 2012 Q1 in the UK, the number of adults who had used the Internet was 42.

16 million. That is to say, 83. 7 per cent of the adult population had access to the Internet. Moreover, the number of adults who had never accessed to the Internet had diminished from about 23 per cent to 16.

1 per cent (Office for National Statistics, 2012). In addition, another investigation refers to the fact that the phenomenon of overuse of the Internet is increasingly more prevalent (Greenfield, 1999).With more and more people spending a lot of time surfing on the Internet and overuse it, the phenomenon may affect peoples’ health significantly. In this essay, the negative effects caused by overuse of the Internet on both an individual psychological and physical health will be discussed. Firstly, it will describe what kind of psychological and physical health problems could be caused by overuse the Internet.

Then it states some solutions to the problems of overuse of the Internet. Overuse of computers may lead to physical health problems.For example, spending extended periods of time using the computer prone to cause ocular surface disease. A study indicated that an amount of population of office workers with protracted computer use was suffered from visual symptoms such as blurred vision, ocular discomfort, dry eye and eyestrain (Portello et al, 2012). Most office workers, spending all day working on a computer, use computers for such a long period everyday actually make then suffer from tired eyes.

Indeed, individuals are suffering from serious visual symptoms while using computers both in the workplace and elsewhere.Another point to consider is spending too much time will increase the risk of overweight. A research shows that children who spend excessive time playing computer games instead of participating in other activities may be in a high risk of obesity and hand strain (Subrahmanyam et al, 2000). Many children even adults spend prolonged periods playing online games, which is a popular computer activity nowadays. An investigation by BetterHealth, found that Australian children in its study spent more than 2 hours watching TV and spent the same time on playing video games and internet.It might lead children to become obese because of the lack of physical activity (BetterHealth 2011).

They do less exercise compared with other people and the lack of physical activity, such as playing sport, will raise the risk of overweight. Moreover, Excessive playing of computer games may also cause hand injuries when game players press buttons frequently and fiercely during game play. As we can see from mentioned above, overuse computer can cause some negative effects on physical health. Apart from physical health problems, over depend on the Internet can cause people to have less direct social connection.They may be isolated from the real world or feel depressed.

It might influence people psychosocially. Research stated that interpersonal relationships have a negative relationship with Internet use (Lo et al, 2005). People who feel gloomy while establishing real interpersonal relationships might use the Internet as a substitute for real world social contacts. For instance, some Facebook heavy users were uneasy about withdrawing from the site as they feared that they might miss important social information or offending contacts.Another study be Caplan ( 2007) found that there was a great positive correlation between loneliness and negative outcomes owing to Internet use. People who establish more face-to-face networks of friends may not feel emotional loneliness.

However, an amount of time that communicates with families decreased from greater use of the Internet. The Internet has caused people to become socially isolated and feel anxiety if they could not access the Internet to check whether they were missing some social information (Caplan, 2007: 234-235).Based on the preceding discussion, there are several ways could help us caring health although it is inevitable to be harmed in physical health from overuse computer. Owing to the problem caused by staring at computer monitor, it is necessary to learn some methods to reduce the eyestrain when using computer for a long period. There are some ways of saving our eyesight that Anshel (2007) suggested. Firstly, change the eye posture when looking at the computer monitor.

The center of the screen should be 7 to 10 inches below your horizontal line of sight.In addition, being aware of winking as usual could avoid straining the eyes. Then, look far scenery for 10 seconds after using computer about every 10 minutes(Anshel,2007:20-22). Another issue be discussed is the fatness resulted from spending excessive time using computers. In order to prevent children from obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics (1999) suggested that parents have to limit time of using computer including surf on the Internet or edit electronic documents and encourage their children to take part in other activities, such as athletics sports and outdoor activities.

However, spending excessive amounts of time online also affects hugely peoples’ psychosocial health. According to a study mentioned that people who prefer to maintain online social interaction can change their social behavior and resources so as to build realistic relationship (Kraut et al, 1998). By way of that, people might take more face-to-face social activities rather than online contact. It is easier to establish friendship when people chat with friends face-to-face than chat on the Internet and observe each other’s emotional expression directly.In brief, spending a disproportionate amount of time surfing on the Internet or working on computers brings out the impact on peoples’ psychological and physical health.

There has no one solution could solve the effects on overuse the Internet completely although some ways could perhaps lower the influence of overuse the Internet. In the future, it is possible that some symptoms will be discussed and testified that also caused by overuse of the Internet. Hence, we should pay much attention to this healthy problem caused by excessive use of the Internet.