Benefits and Disadvantages for Internet Use for Teenagers

Professor Hall
English 1101
February 22nd, 2011
Benefits and Disadvantages of internet use for teenagers
The internet itself can be very helpful but also very harmful at the same time. Internet is defined as a collection of various services and resources. Meaning that you can get a lot of answers to your questions from the internet, but just like anything else, with the good comes the bad, and I’m pretty sure more bad comes from it than good.The internet has plenty of advantages, Faster Communication, Information Resources, Entertainment, & Social Networking. Newer innovations only make using the internet faster and more reliable. Now, you can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world. As for information resources, any kind of information on any topic is available on the Internet. The search engines like Google, and Yahoo are at your service on the Internet. The internet is a huge help also for teenagers when their doing their homework, practice example problems, quizzes & etc. Youtube, Google, and other sites help aid in the entertainment section. I know a lot of teenagers get on Youtube for hours looking at different artist music videos, watching their favorite shows, and other different things. But I know you’ve heard the saying that “not everything that glitters is gold”. Just as many good services the internet can provide, it does the same for bad. For starters, when a lot of teenagers use the internet, they are unaware of exactly how dangerous it can be. Clicking on all the different ads that you see come up for free gift cards, money, trips and etc can lead to two different things. Theft or Viruses. Theft can come from this because when they first tell you, you’ve won they ask for your name, address, phone number, etc. By asking for your name and address can be theft on its own because they could be using your identity, or they could use the following information to try and find out your credit card numbers. Viruses get into your computer a lot from clicking on those “pop ups” you see. The next disadvantage I see from teenagers using internet is the ability to search Pornography. The internet allows you to access and download millions of photos, videos and other items. Such unrestricted access to porn can be detrimental for children and teenagers. It can even play a havoc in marital and social lives of adults. But despite that, in my opinion the most dangerous and disadvantage of teenagers using the internet is the Social networks, such as “Facebook”, Twitter, and other local and world-wide chat rooms. As we know, the world is full of weirdo’s, who get onto the internet and make facebook pages, twitter accounts, and pose in chat rooms mostly as younger males who tend to prey on young female teenagers. In most cases more women get attacked by men, than by a woman attacking a male. Too many teenagers have a habit of posting their every move to facebook or twitter. For an example, they will say “Going to the mall.” “Home alone” “Going for a run”, and other things that people just don’t need to know. Strangers and even some of your friends don’t need to know that you’re going to the mall or that your home alone or that you’re out going for a run. That’s letting people know your every move so if they did want to attack you; you helped make it a little bit easier. This is something MOST teenagers do, and they don’t even take the time to realize that when you post things like that everybody can see it, and if people make fake pages and you befriend them, then now they know exactly what you’re up too. To me, this is the most dangerous effect by far.The internet can be everything you need because of all the helpful tools it provides you with. However at the same time teenagers just need to be more aware and alert of what could happen if you’re not using the internet carefully. Just like everything in life, it has its advantages and disadvantages, but as long as you are sensible about what you are doing, you should be fine!