In this age where kids have access to digital devices and the internet, it is becoming increasingly difficult for parents to prevent their kids from getting addicted to the internet.

It is dangerous for kids to become addicted at a young phase because it affects their overall development as they grow to become adults.  

Hence, parents must make it important to ensure that their kids use the internet the right way, without getting to the point where it becomes compulsive or obsessive.

In this piece, parents can learn how to prevent their kids from getting addicted.

Try to spend some time online

Most parents of this age didn’t have access to the internet and digital devices the way their children presently do.

You can create a few social media accounts, or if you have some already, spend time there to understand the things your children are doing.

When you are familiar with how these social media platforms and the internet in general work, you will be able to guide your child not to test unfamiliar waters.

Monitor their computer or phone activity

Another way to prevent internet addiction in kids is to watch out for their activities each day. You can start by ensuring that they use the internet in an open space like the living room.

Do not give them the chance to use it behind closed doors. Remember to set daily limits on internet use so that they can focus on other productive activities like school and housework.

You can also know the passwords to your child’s account so that you can observe their internet history from time to time.

Feel free to get help

If you feel like it is getting impossible to control your child’s internet activity, do not hesitate to seek help.

You need to ensure that it doesn’t get to the point where it develops to become a compulsion that they will not be able to control. You can get help from a professional to provide all the answers and solutions you seek.

Internet addiction belongs to the behavioral addiction category where the individual displays certain compulsive traits like spending several hours on the internet, isolating themselves, etc.

It is important to mention that when you spend too much time on the internet, dopamine chemical is produced. This chemical is responsible for inducing pleasure.

With time, the dopamine produced becomes insufficient, and you will need to spend additional hours on the internet, to enjoy the dopamine rush.

Here are some of the signs that someone has an internet addiction

1. Overspending

When you spend more time than usual on the internet, you are likely to misuse money. You will spend extra money on these internet activities, instead of sending them to other productive channels.

In the long run, you will discover that you are spending more than you should, and it becomes a big financial problem for you because the addiction has eaten deep.

• Lying about your internet time

Another way to know when someone is struggling with internet addiction is when they begin to be fictitious about their amount of internet time.

The reason is that they don’t want people to complain about their excessive internet hours. So, they will rather reduce the amount of time so that people who ask will see the duration as normal.

• Loss of interest in other productive activities

When you notice that an individual prefers to spend more time on the internet instead of doing other things, they might be addicted.

Their work-life might suffer, and the same goes for their academics if they are students. After dedicating several hours to the internet and they are tired, they will spend a few minutes trying to make up for the lost time.

• Relationship issues

Someone with internet addiction might have relationship issues with friends, family, and romantic partners. Since they are always fixated on their computer screens, and enjoying various content on the internet, they barely have time to bond with loved ones.

These days, it is hard to imagine how the world would look like if there was no internet. When you look at the existing statistics like the number of websites created and the number of blog posts published daily, it would be mind-blowing if the internet stops to exist for a day.

The internet has impacted our lives in a plethora of ways, and the points below show some of the numerous benefits of the internet.

• Access to unlimited knowledge

The fact is, if we were to set each day of the rest of our lives to learn what is on the internet, we would never be able to meet up. The internet has loads of information at our disposal and the amazing part is, you can get most of it for free.

These days, you no longer have to travel to the library in the next city to get access to information. Right from the comfort of your room, you can access any information you want and store it away in a safe place.

With the availability of e-books and other online book formats, a good number of people prefer having soft copies to the hard cover books.

• Communication and Connection

The internet has afforded us the chance to connect with people who we have not seen before. Everyone who uses the internet would have made the minimum of an acquaintance on the internet. People who have friends on the internet have come to reap various benefits in terms of opportunities, cash gifts and the likes.

These days, people now work remotely with some of them referred to as freelancers. You can work for someone who is several miles away in another continent and get paid for your services.

• Education

The internet has made education easier because you can now look up solutions to assignments, presentations and the likes. A student who has access to the internet would have a better chance of succeeding.

• Entertainment

These days, the internet is fast-becoming one of the most used means of entertainment. You can view the latest series, movies and comedy videos.

The internet is one of the greatest blessings ever to man. And it has provided us with great help more than we can imagine. The internet has made things easier for us, and it has increased our access to unlimited knowledge all for free.

Gone are the days when you have to travel to an old library to read an old book or a journal. These days, the internet brings online libraries to your fingertips, giving you access to almost anything you need.

However, whatever has the positive side comes with its negative effects. And sadly, the internet has affected people in some ways unimaginable. One of these ways is our productivity.

For instance, people who work in organizations and corporate bodies are largely reliant on the internet to help them increase their productivity. However, some of them are addicted to the internet which has a negative implication on their productivity.

People whose productivity is affected by the internet are those who spend late nights on the internet. They allow the internet time usage to cut into their sleep time, and it prevents them from being productive when they are at work the next day.

The same applies to students in various institutions of learning. A good number of students do not know how to control their internet time and it affects their productivity. This is one of the reasons why some of them perform poorly in their academics.

For some of these students, they find it hard to concentrate in the class because the previous night, they spent most of their time on the internet. So, it is either they sleep during the class or they keep surfing the net.

Similarly, if an individual is not careful enough, there is a tendency for his or her personal development to be affected. The internet can help your personal development and it can also cause a deterioration depending on how you use it.

If the internet affects your productivity greatly, it is important for you to discipline yourself by cutting down on your internet time.  

The internet has become easily accessible to everyone such that, even children have access to it. These days, it is a source of worry to parents because, they feel the internet is depriving them from having real life experiences.

Asides gaming, the free time of kids is never left unoccupied, they use that time to surf the internet, blog, download and perform other activities online.

There are some warning signs which parents need to take note of in their children, to tell if they are addicted to the internet or not.

To start with, children who are addicted to the internet, tend to lose track of time when they are online. The reason for this is not far-fetched.

The internet is a virtual space which has created a home-like safe atmosphere that plays on the psychology of everyone. It takes a disciplined person to realize that it is falsehood.

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For children, it is somewhat difficult for them to know that the internet is robbing them of reality. Therefore, they can spend hours without knowing, and this prevents them from taking part in other profitable activities.

In addition to this, they become angry or sad whenever they have to let go of the internet. When this sign is displayed in a kid, parents should act swiftly. Such child would also go through his or her messages online, emails inclusive several times daily.

Also, children who are addicted to the internet, would prefer to spend time online instead of spending it with their family or friends.

Due to this, they become liars because they do not want their loved ones to have an idea of what they are doing online. As a matter of fact, they go to the extent of sneaking to use the internet when there is no one around.

Parents need to solve this problem in kids, and one of the best ways is to address this problem by confronting their kid. You need to put some measures in place to cut down on their internet time.

Parents also need to be internet-savvy, they need to learn how it works in this age, so that they can be able to effectively monitor their children.

The internet as it were today, is diversified, making it more difficult to ascribe a description to it or to attach a label. People have argued that the internet should be seen as a single entity and there are different parts, modes and means of communication that make up the internet. As the internet becomes diversified, so also its users. What was known to be a homogeneous conglomeration of technologically oriented users, is now a broad collection of almost infinite number of subscribers.

The concept of internet culture has a lot to do with the way by which activities and functions are carried out in the internet environment. It refers to the norms, shared values and views that are generated on different online platforms. This views and perspectives helps shape and guide individuals and users on how to relate and interact with others. The essence of understanding internet culture is studying what activities people perform online, how they do it, the thought process and what stimulates their online actions and interactions. There are a mass range of cultures on the internet with the only connecting factor is that they are all found online.

Understanding internet culture could pose series of challenges and difficulties. This is because the internet is multifaceted and multi-cultured and as such, studying one unit after the other might be quite a daunting task. The fact that the internet environment and assembly of users is so varied requires employing various research means and there would be different perspectives to studying. Also, there may be a need to combine various methods to understanding different aspects of certain internet platforms. More Importantly, there is a need for creativity and innovation in studying the internet culture because the internet is a complex structure and it requires a complex approach.

The learning and venture into the complexities of the internet has become a course of study and research field overtime. There have been attempts to make internet studies a discipline and has been inculcated in media and communication studies. It is not possible to learn about internet culture without having little knowledge on things that relates to information and communication.

Also, the hybrid nature of internet fields requires using different perspectives and approach to understand it. The users and materials must also be taken into consideration when studying. There should be an open methodology employing a mixture of diverse methods and theoretical perspectives in the study of the internet culture.

Telephone technology brought humanity a real time means of voice communication over long distance. But the internet was a large scale, revolutionary way of enabling the instantaneous, collective exchange of ideas without any in-person social expectations.

Internet culture is a recent addition to humanity but is having a profound impact on the nature of human interaction. Communication that takes place through some other method besides in-person interaction is not a recent phenomenon. Since the creation of the written word, mankind has been communicating through writing as a means of supplementing verbal communication.

A person who is using the internet to communicate enjoys the protection, security and control of an environment of their choosing. The average person is in a place of comfort and familiarity while they are online. A huge majority of internet communication is initiated while the person communicating is in their home. This means the person is on their own turf, and it shows in their communication. A person feels more powerful in their personal environment which leads to more openness and fewer inhibitions.

Internet culture communicates at a more subconscious level than people’s in-person communication entails. The lowered inhibitions that the free expression of the internet enables reveals something below the surface of humanity that we were not previously aware of. The resentment that people feel toward polite in-person communication has become painfully obvious. With the emergence of the internet, it has been revealed that people would prefer to communicate the specifics of their own perspectives without the inhibitions of politeness, courtesy or respect hindering the raw emotion of their opinions.

This has revealed an alarming revelation of society’s inner life and psychology. Society at large has a deeply seeded resentment towards having to tolerate one another’s differences. People are far more comfortable communicating through a medium that does not require tolerance than they are having to communicate while respecting the boundaries of other people. The mental health of people is very important to learning to make the right decisions, and seek alternative professional help with the stress sometimes.

If internet culture were merely a reflection of society, that would say some very significant things about society. If the ideas and opinions that are collectively expressed on the internet are things that have long existed within society and are more actively coming to the surface through the medium of the internet, than society is inherently separatist, intolerant and self involved. Many people believe that society has long indicated that it values these traits, but is internet culture exemplifying them?

Internet culture and society are two things that effect one another tremendously. The internet has become our primary means of communicating globally. We rely on it entirely for written communication, as well as rely on it largely for voice communication, visual communication and entertainment. There is no doubt that internet culture and society have changed the faces that the other wears. But where in lies the original source of change; internet culture or society?

On the other hand, if you examine society as a reflection of internet culture, you have a slightly different picture of the state of things. If internet culture is what fragmented society, or at least played a large part in society’s fragmentation, than humanity has gone through a different kind of evolution. The internet enables people to engage in communication more selfishly – from the comfort of their personal space, without the burden of in-person confrontations or considerations. It permits a more antisocial method of communication. Is it possible that this less personal option of communication is responsible for the societal breakdown in social concern and awareness?

Trying to understand whether it is internet culture or society itself that is responsible for the fragmentation of human values is like trying to solve the chicken and the egg conundrum. Likely, they both bare responsibility in the fractured human condition, but how much remains unclear. They effect one another to an indistinguishable degree – humanity’s intolerance being expressed through internet communication and internet culture driving a wedge into humanity. The only hope of reversing this trend is if humanity learns how to balance priorities so that it esteems healthy, in-person communication over unhealthy internet communication.

The culture of the internet is one that is so new that modern cultural anthropologists cannot predict its evolution with any certainty. The impact on humanity that internet culture carries is enormous, but it is also very recent and there is much still to study about it. One tremendous consideration of internet culture is its implications for collective mental health. The way that the internet effects humanity’s social health and the individual’s mental health is concerning.

One indication of how internet culture effects us collectively is in an examination of how we moderate it. First of all, mental health experts do not know exactly how much time and energy is healthy to expend on the internet, but there is a range that is considered healthy. Society is struggling to fall within this healthy range. Internet addiction is an identified mental illness in modern psychology and many of us are offenders. Balancing time spent on the internet and the rest of life’s responsibilities has proven difficult for us, yet it is undeniable that limitless access to the internet is unhealthy. People are foregoing physical activity, in-person relationships and life responsibilities in order to be on the internet, proving that we are overvaluing the internet. This is a sign of mental disorder that could require mental illness treatment.

The health of internet communication is another major factor to contend with. Any type of communication between people falls somewhere on a spectrum between healthy and unhealthy. Examples of healthy communication would include honesty, respect, tolerance, courtesy and genuine interest. All too often on the internet, communication is found to be lacking these qualities, and is instead riddled with dishonesty, disrespect, intolerance, rudeness and a lack of interest in other’s perspectives. A detrimental breakdown of healthy communication is taking place within internet culture and is damaging the mental health of internet users.

Some may argue that the internet is merely a medium of expression for mental unhealthiness that would exist even without the internet, and there may be truth to that sentiment, but cultural anthropologists and psychologists have observed a correlation between the internet and society’s mental health which would indicate that they effect one another.

The irony of the internet is that it embodies the advance of technology, but in many ways, the regression of humanity as well. Humanity is ever changing, but whether it is evolving or devolving remains to be seen. It stands to reason that the positive evolution of humanity would be toward tolerance and altruism, but what is actually taking place is far from that. The fragmentation that society is experiencing due to the conflicts that have arisen from internet culture and communication is staggering. Society has demonstrated that it places a higher value on separatism, personal comfort and self interest than it does on collectivism, social responsibility and unity. The ways that the fragmentation of society becomes clear through internet interactions are as follows:

• Separatism. Internet culture largely promotes separatism over tolerance. This is made clear in the online interactions that take place between internet users. Opinions within internet culture prefer a society where those who are different from us are kept a comfortable distance away from us. This can be seen in the hostility of exchanges between internet users.
• Personal comfort. Where an altruistic nature can only be demonstrated in the absence of comfort, internet culture highly esteems personal comfort. A majority of people accessing the internet are doing so from a location of great personal comfort, and communication through the internet and other digital media is decidedly the most preferred method of communication.
• Self interest. Human interactions that take place online are largely self serving. Where as in-person communication comes with an obligatory sense of respecting others, internet communication is preferred because it empowers the user to respect themselves instead of others. The element of empathy that is so necessary to a healthy society is lost on internet culture. Instead, the internet gives us compassion fatigue and we harden ourselves to others because of the access we have to the internet.