Importance of Internet
Imagine this: you are doing your homework, when suddenly, your phone buzzes. The familiar sound immediately triggers an intense need to stop what you are doing and pick up your phone. Your mind begins to race as you think of what the notification could be: Snapchat, Twitter, a text. Before you know it, an hour has passed as you scroll deep into your Instagram feed. The internet provides an endless flow of distractions, and it does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. The digital world is a massive emerging culture that is absorbing teens and young adults into participation, whether it be for their own joy, or for fear of missing out. If you do not sign up for Instagram, how will you see what everyone is up to? How else would you let everyone know you went to the party last night if you did not post a selfie on your Snapchat story? In some cases, it has even turned into a “popularity” contest: seeing who can get the most followers, likes, and comments. Overall, technology has endless benefits, and because of this, people all over the globe are constantly drawn to its many uses. While this can be a good thing in some aspects, it makes the internet an enormous distraction, which serves little benefit to young adults with their busy lives and growing minds. However, what is the alternative? The internet is most definitely a distraction, yet we rely on it in many other ways. Society must find a way to ease reliance on the internet for social interaction and simple joys, while increasing usage of the internet for informational purposes. There must be a healthy medium. The digital world in today’s society is taking attention away from more important matters, and causing more of a harmful distraction than it is serving beneficial purposes.
Social media seems to have an intense power over young adults. From video games, to apps, to music software; the internet offers an outlet to everyone of any age or interest. For students, it provides a way to cope with stress by providing an escape from the real world for a little. However, this comes at a significant cost. While providing many other advantages and benefits such as access to groundbreaking research and endless information, the internet also offers an even greater distraction. It is more than easy to get sucked into online content, such as videos, games, or interacting with others on social media. Young adults do not always have the time to spare that they spend online when they should be focusing on their jobs, growing up and transitioning into the real world, or even smaller responsibilities like homework, chores and taking care of themselves. Even though it seems like a minor distraction at the time, constant use of the internet and technology can lead to a large setback in the timeline of a young adult’s life. As Sam Anderson quotes Herbert A. Simon in his article, “In Defense of Distraction,”, “aA wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”. This “poverty of attention” leads students to lower grades, lower attention spans, and a strain on academics as students struggle to multi-task between homework and their social media accounts. Neuroscientists have conducted many studies into attention span, memory and multitasking. Results show that the brain becomes overwhelmed when forced to multitask, therefore shifting its processing from the hippocampus to the striatum. In other words, instead of storing information as memory, it is instead recognizing information as a small task. This makes it incredibly difficult to recall or even learn whatever it is the person is doing. Multitasking will not help you to do two things at once in a more efficient way, unlike popular belief. It instead will cause you to give less focus and effort on both tasks. As a result, someone’s work and efforts will not live up to their full potential. This, in the grand scheme of things, will have a harmful effect on an individual and their future success.
Along with the struggle of multitasking and mental strain, the digital world is also capable of masking personal problems for people. The internet provides an escape for students who may not be able to relate with peers in the real world, or those who do not know how to go about making an effort to put themselves out there to do so. Many young adults take to websites like Twitter and Tumblr to find others online with similar interests. This allows them to do so without actually talking to people in real life, which many people prefer not to do. Young adults and developing teens no longer need to leave the home in order to interact with others online or to experience joy, excitement, and many other emotions and pleasures. It also allows people the ability to present themselves as an ideal version of who they truly are. Young adults are able to present themselves however they would like on social media, hiding the reality of an identity that they may not like or wish to change. Spending a great deal of your young life worrying about how you appear to others on social media can feel as if it almost takes over your mind, distracting you from reality. Obviously, it is easy to see how these possibilities can lead to an addiction and dependance of the internet. Anderson compares the internet to a “Skinner box”, one that manages to seep into our minds and feed “our deepest mechanisms of addiction”. Social media, instead of being used to feed the urges of looking “cool” and “popular” online, could be used more for other, more useful things. An example would be promoting a brand, gaining awareness on an important campaign or fundraiser, and even raising money for an important cause, commonly done on a platform called GoFundMe. Looking at all the benefits of social media instead of the flaws will assist in eliminating some of the internet’s detrimental distractions.
Robin Henig, in her article “What Is It About 20-Somethings?,”, explains how more recently, young adults are taking much longer to grow up and make the transition into full adulthood, entering the dreaded “real adult world”. She explains the five milestones that an individual reaches, such as finishing school, getting married and getting a job, that signify this transition. Some people, especially more frequently now, do not always complete every single milestone. Henig questions, “Even if some traditional milestones are never reached, one thing is clear: Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why?” And this leads to a good question without a completely certain answer. However, one factor that can contribute to the answer to this question is technology. Is the constant use and distraction of technology a factor in this delay to adulthood? One thing is certain: the increases in the use of technology and social media are comparable to these increases in the delayment of reaching adulthood. They are both increasing now, more than ever, which could show that they are in fact related. This excessive use of technology, not in a beneficial way, can be slowly increasing the time it takes a young adult to finally get out of the unknown stage between adolescence and adulthood that Henig labels “emerging adulthood”. And it makes sense; the more time you are spending online, the less time that goes towards finding your career and building your future. This is harmful because a drawn out period before entering adulthood could take away your motivation to grow up. If you spend years comfortably living at home with your parents and no job, you will become used to this lifestyle and not want to leave it.
Another problem that has emerged from the overuse of internet is going blind to real humanitarian issues. They are constantly overshadowed by much simpler events in the media, such as celebrity drama, the best new music, who just won in the sports world, and what is going on on the most popular tv shows. You are more likely to hear about those things than natural disasters, deaths and tragedies because everyone is so engulfed online in media. Staying distracted online is taking everyone’s attention away from these things that need attention the most. To fix this problem, we could use large social media platforms to inform of everyone the news stories that need to be heard. While the major events usually turn up on social media, it is not enough; celebrities are still getting more attention than those dying in third world countries. Instead of tweeting about the latest gossip going on in their school, young adults should be using their online resources to make a positive impact on society. They could do so by doing something such as sharing local news stories that might need more attention. The internet caters to the largest audience in the world, and this powerful tool should not be passed up on to use in such a way.
Would you rather see the world through a screen or with your own eyes? Being constantly distracted by technology, you might never get the opportunity to go out and do so. It seems as though everyone is on Instagram, looking at pictures of those who are experiencing the beauties of nature themselves, instead of actually going out on their own to do so. Parents constantly complain how their kids are “always on their phone” and we just laugh it off, but should we take that comment more seriously? It is becoming noticeable the amount of time young adults spend using their phones and other technology. These young adults don’t think much of it in the moment, but they are constantly missing out on other things happening in real life when they give their attention to a screen. Is staying in your room all day watching netflix really better than going out and spending time with your family? Technology constantly removes us from the world around us; we must stop letting these distractions take away moments that we will never be able to get back.
Young adults are the future, and they have the power to change the world. Thomas King, in his TEDx talk “Adults, Wwe Nneed to have the tTalk”, says “I don’t know for sure what the world will look like in twenty years, but what I can guarantee you is that it won’t look anything like it does today.” There is no stopping our changing world, so why don’t we work to make it the best future possible, using the technologies we have? If the internet is one of our most powerful resources, we should be using it to benefit those all around the world, instead of getting distracted by it.While it seems that getting distracted by technology is inevitable, we can always find a way to power through it. Getting rid of it as a whole is not an option, so the next best action must be taken. To do so, we have to focus on using technology for its strong benefits, not the simple uses that engulf us as a generation. If we seek out the benefits of the digital world as a society, and remove many of the baleful aspects of it, technology will be stronger than ever. It has copious amounts of potential, we just have to work for it, instead of getting distracted by it.
