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Children Internet use and addiction 1

Addiction refers to a state of reliance on a substance to an extend that one cannot withdraw easily. With advent of information technology to date, internet addiction is emerging to be a threat to the children aged 8-12years of age. Internet addiction refers to spending most of one’s time online thus affecting adversely his/her physical, social, physiological, mental and economic wellness.
Internet has been widely used by children in various activities. For instance, they can obtain educational material from the web for purposes of learning, be informed about the most current events as they occur globally and communicate with their friends via emails. They can also get to know new places around the world and what happens there while being exposed to new perspectives of life, participate and contribute to online discussions, plays, games and chats. On top of that, the children can get an opportunity for relaxing by playing games, listening to music and watching movies. Despite all these potential benefits of internet, it can be harmful when the child becomes addicted such that he/she spends most of the time online doing inappropriate and unnecessary things like watching pornography, reading and listening hatred speeches over the internet (http://www.otal.umd.edu/uupractice/children/).
Internet addiction in children presents with the following signs and symptoms. First and foremost, the child begins spending a lot of time on computer and loses control of time on computer completely with time, ignores friends and abscond duties to been online. The child feels anxious, stressed, and irritable when the computer is not available or interrupted. He/she may hide to go and browse which may lead to development of learning problems in school.
Internet addition has shown various negative impacts to children that may include the following. The child may become irresponsible both at home and in school thus perfuming poorly in class, engaging in immoral behaviors like juvenile delinquency due to persistent exposure to dirty materials such as pornography, use of guns and fighting techniques. To children who are addicted to internet, they normally withdraw from frequent exercises and thus may develop health problems such as obesity and bone weakness. Other health effects include strong headaches, dry eyes, backaches, pain on wrist, elbows and shoulders, loss of appetite and lack of personal hygiene. In addition, it leads to social decay since the children do not develop skills for interacting with others since most of the times they are engaged in playing with the computers
On the other hand, wise use of internet has helped children greatly. To begin with, it has been used for education purposes where children look for learning materials and resources to aid in doing academic assignments. Secondly, it has been used to increase children creativity for instance by engaging in mathematical games and other problem solving exercises. Thirdly, internet has enhanced communication skills like writing, reading, listening and observation skills. Additionally, due to the exposure to different cultures through internet, children learn to appreciate other people’s culture thus promoting understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. Elsewhere, by sharing messages with others in various places of the world, they learn to make new friends.
To avoid internet addiction for children, the parents and guardians should observe the following; enlighten the children on teenage sexual abuse and the probability of online dangers. Putting the computer at the common room and not in private rooms within the house, monitoring use of chat rooms, make surveillance of your children’s online accounts from time to time, exercise parental control over the use of internet by installing blocking software and lastly do not let your child to be idle. In conclusion therefore, internet addiction for children is a contagious problem and therefore parents and guardians have a great role to play in preventing its adverse effects. (http://www.otal.umd.edu/uupractice/children/)