Introduction

Modern life has become easier and the people of the world have to thanks to the immense contribution of the internet technology to communication and information sharing. There is no doubt that internet has made our life become easier and more convenient. We can use internet to communicate with people around the world, doing business by using internet, make new friend and know different cultures, searching information, studying and etc.

The internet not only allows for communication through email but also ensures easy availability of information, images, and products amongst other things. Every day the internet continues to provide a new facility, something new that is immensely convenient and that makes life more easier for web users. However, the internet also contains some unwanted elements or disadvantages. The following are the advantages and disadvantages of the internet.

 Advantages of the Internet

Firstly, the internet can let a person to communicate with people in virtually any parts of the world through the internet or e-mail, without having to leave his room. E-mail allowed peoples to communicate with minimum of times. It is now possibles to send a message to any parts of the world through a simple e-mail address and the message is delivered in matter of seconds. Every companies is using e-mail in business. The convenience of e-mail has allowed businesses to expand and communicates with their vendors and customers located all over the world in records times. Personal communication has also become more easier thanks to e-mail. Chat rooms, video conferencing are some of the latest additions in this technology and these have allowed peoples to chat in real time. Besides, there are a lot of messengers services in offering. With the help of such services, it has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your thoughts and explore other cultures. The internet also allows people within an organization to easily communicate and share informations.

Second, information is probably the biggest advantages that internet offers. Internet is a virtual treasures trove of information. Any kinds of information on any topic under the sun is available on the internet. The search engines like Google, Yahoo are at your service through the internet. There is a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about every subjects known to man, ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support, the lists is simply endless. We can uses these search engines, websites dedicated to different subjects and large amount of articles and papers are available for perusal in a matter of a few seconds.

Forums on a number of sites allow peoples to discuss and share their thoughts and informations with others located at different places all over the world. Whether this information is the latest news happenings in the world or information about your favourite celebrity, everything is available at your finger tips. A huge cache of data is available on the internet on every single subjects. With this storehouse of information people can not only increases their knowledge bank but can do so without wasting their time through traditional means such as visiting libraries and conducting exhaustive research. With internet, students can save their times to search for information and using their time to do other works.

This is particularly relevant for students who can use this wealth of information for their school projects and also learn new things about the subjects they are interested in. In fact this internet is for many schools and universities that are now able to assigns projects and work to the students and follows their progress which can be easily posted on the school or university internal websites. Online education has grown at a very fast pace since internet allow the development and uses of innovative tools for imparting education. University students and lecturers can communicate through internet. Besides, some universities are also offerings far distances courses to make study become more inefficient and convenience. Internet become a gateway for those who wants to learn but cannot afford the living fees at foreign countries.

Thirdly, entertainments is another popular reasons why many people prefer to surf the internet. In fact, the internet has becomes quite successful in trapping the multifaceted entertainment industry. Downloading games or just surfing the celebrity websites are some of the uses people have discovered. Even celebrities are using the internet effectively for promotional campaigns. Besides that, there are numerous games that can be downloaded for free. The industry of online gaming has tasted dramatic and phenomenal attentions by game lovers. The internet has also revolutionized the entertainments industry. People nowadays no need to go to a cinema hall to watch your favourite movie. Instead of watching movies at cinema now have companies offering their services where you just can downloads or order your favourite movie and watch it with a fast internet connection. Besides that, you also can download other important software or your favourite music in a matter of few minutes. There are a number of shareware programs that allow you to share and download your favourite music and videos. The internet also allows people from different cultures and background to connect with each other. Internet gaming is a huge business and allow enthusiastic gamers to compete against each other in games even when they are located far apart. Likewise dating has also allowed people to find their prospective soul mates.

Through the internet, shopping has also got a complete makeover thanks to the contributions of the internet. You have many website selling a varieties of products online and one just need to select or bid for the desired product and entire financial transactions can be conducts through the internet. E commerce has got a facilities because of the internet and entire global business deals can be conducted over the internet. Transfer of money is also no longer a times consuming job and with just a click of a button you can easily transfers funds to any place you wish. Some of these services of courses come at a price. The internet has made life very convenient. With numerous online services you can now performs all your transaction online. You can books tickets for a movie, transfer funds, pay utility bills, taxes etc, and right from your home. Some travel websites even plans an itinerary as per your preferences and take care of airline tickets, hotel reservation etc. by using internet, consumers can compare the prices of product before making decisions to purchase.

People who believes that impacts of internet on students is positives said that internet help students by providing them the handy material and resources for their studies. It is a big reality that now students takes a lots of help from internet. Students have any problem regarding their studies or their daily life they can finds lots of solutions of that problem from internet. There they can find out articles of scholar and other professional people which would be helpful for them. They can take lectures from different academics on different topics.

One of the most important benefits of internet is that students can earn from internet through bloggers. Students can take interest on earning through internet. It would be a great source of income for them and also it would provide them a big experience of writing. The students who are interested in media and wanted to be a writer in the future must do this work. This would increase their professional skills which would lead them towards great future.

Students can also use internet for the social connectivity and there are lots of social media websites which mostly students use for social networking. Such as Facebook, Twitter, Weibo etc are the famous social networking site. Students can contact themselves with the foreign students and discuss them on different issue to enhance their skills and knowledge. By using internet wisely, students can get many information to enrich their knowledge.

Disadvantages of the Internet

However, for all its advantages and positive aspects, the internet has its dark and ugly side too. The recent rumours that mongering about racial riots in Kuala Lumpur which in created a furores, just goes to show how this tool, with its unrivalled reputation as an information assassinations and company reputations can suffer if internet facilities are abused, especially by those with an axe to grind.

Besides that some students will spend too much of time through the internet. Students are likely to neglect their studies. If the movie has too strong a hold even elderly people are likely to neglect some their important work. Students might lose concentrate on their studies because they spent too much time on internet. Some of them can’t even divide their time to do homework but they spent their time on watching movie or chatting with their friends through internet.

While the internet has made life easier for people in many ways it is also reflecting an uglier side to its existence through a number of problems that it has thrown up for its users. With a large amount of information freely available on the internet theft and misuse of this information is a likely possibility. Time and again you see cases of people using someone else’s information and research and passing it off as their own. Children nowadays seem losing their ability to communicate with others. They are used to communicate with others via internet but they cannot communicate with others face by face fluent. It was a strange sight that internet had make people losing their ability to communicate. It is because people now are over depending on internet.

Another problem or disadvantage of the internet is that it has allowed a great deal of anonymity to a large number of people who may access the different websites, forums and chat rooms available. This has allowed perverted individuals to at times take advantage of innocent people and abuse their trust. We can always hear from news that cheaters used internet to make crimes. The cheaters will make friends with single ladies and cheat them by using sweet words. Lonely single ladies are very easy get in trap of these cheaters. These cheaters normally will cheat these ladies to bank-in money to them. Some of the cheaters try to borrow money from these ladies.

There are a host of games that are available on the internet and this has made most children to shun all outdoor activity. In the absence of physical activity, children can easily fall prey to a lot of lifestyle related diseases such as obesity, apart from failing to develop interpersonal skills. Apart from these factors, sitting continuously in front of a computer screen can seriously damage our eyes, and put a strain on our neck and shoulders. Children are in their developing years and these factors can create life-long problems for them. Children will become more violence because affected by internet games. There are too many internet games that contain violence content and it may affect negative influence to children.

Another disadvantage of internet is harmful to little children. Children nowadays are explored to internet and they are used to maintain internet as their daily life. This is one of the greatest threats internet poses to children. Internet has provided an easy medium to children to gain access to pornography and this can cause them to either become sexually-deviant or sexually-addictive. This phenomenon has also caused another problem, and that is the increase in prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in children. According to reports, one out of every four teenagers gets infected with a STD every year. The adult content that is present on the internet promotes irresponsible sex and creates false notions in the minds of students.

If you have been following news lately then you must know what we are referring to. Children have been lured by paedophiles posing as good Samaritans and have been physically abused and molested. Internet has also made it easy for unscrupulous elements to get in touch with children and this has led to an increase in the cases of kidnapping and identity thefts. About 60% young teens in the United States have admitted to responding to messages from strangers. This kind of behaviour is extremely risky and has made children extremely vulnerable to become victims of cyber-crime.

Conclusion

The points mentioned above have posed new challenges to teachers and parents. There are demands from various quarters that there should be some sort of regulation to check this issue. However, we believe that instead of making internet a taboo, we should educate children to use it for their benefit. It is advisable for parents to monitor how much time their children spend on the internet, and if possible set a time-limit till which they would be allowed to use the internet. Having the computer in the living-room instead of a child’s bedroom can also ensure censorship on what they are accessing on the internet. It is also important that you talk to them about ‘the birds and the bees’ because if you do not talk to them, they will turn to their friends and internet for answers which may not provide authentic information. Parents play important role in this content and they have to pay attention on their children despite them get affected by internet.

Although studies on this disorder are in preliminary stages, it has been established that children who spend most of their time on the internet, show a peculiar kind of behaviour which is marked by an urge to be on the internet all the time, so much that the child may show all activities and become immersed in the virtual world. Surveys conducted over the years have found that most people who suffer from Internet addiction disorder are young adults, who easily fall into the lure of exploring everything that is available on the internet. In America alone, it has been estimated that around 10-15 million people are suffering from internet addiction disorder, and this is increasing at the rate of 25% every year. Internet had controlled some of them who are depending internet in their life activities. Most of them will get mad if they cannot connect to internet. It becomes a kind of physiology sickness around us.

The internet focused on the negative effects, it in no way means that we are undermining the importance of internet in our lives. We have written this article for the internet audience, and you are reading it through the internet, which itself explains the positive side of internet usage. It is for us to decide whether we use technology for the betterment of our lives or put it to unabated abuse. Children may not be mature enough to understand this, but us as parents, teachers and guardians need to ensure that we inculcate the right behaviour in our children. Lastly, we have to take the responsibilities to guide out children to use internet wisely and ensure them to get right information from internet.