How the internet affects mental health

What is mental health and what is the Internet?

Mental Health is a person’s emotional, psychological and social state. It affects how he thinks, feels, acts, handles stress state, relates to others and so on.

Internet is a worldwide system of computer networks which enables any computer, if it has permission, to get information from any other computer. Internetworldstats.com estimates that as at June 2017, there were 3.9b internet users of which 10% were based in Africa. It was originally set up by the government of the United States of America so that researchers located in different universities could exchange information.

The internet enables users to exchange information, no matter where they are all over the world. This is why they talk about global village. The information they exchange on the internet can be reliable reports or historical account, false information presented as factual research reports, false reports of history, abusive comments about religion, gender, race, tribe etc.  Therefore the internet can be a source of sound education about any issues but can be used to mislead users and cause social panic. 

Internet is now an important part of our everyday life. It is a product of advancement in technology. The internet has become so important in our lives that we cannot do without it. 

          

However the internet can harm us in various ways with strong effect on our mental health. We use the internet to do research and may now become too dependent on it. This can lead to a reduction in our mental ability because instead of exercising our brain like we exercise our bodies we rely on the internet to give us answers to all questions that we might be asked

We can also become addicted to the internet. The addiction to internet is defined as "use of internet more than 21 hours in a week".  We may therefore not be able to have a good day without visiting the internet for certain hours. It is even possible for a student to want to bring a phone into the classroom to use the internet in the course of lectures. 

The internet can bring conflict into our cultural life. There are things that we are used to in our culture due to our tribal and religious background. The information we get from the internet may go against these cultural and religious beliefs leading to agitation in our minds on how to reconcile the divergent positions. This can also lead to mental health issue too.

The way we relate with people can also be affected by the internet. Some students in higher institutions have been known to be rude to their lecturers because they use the internet in the class to check whatever the lecturer is saying. A teacher who is a human being can be wrong but the student ordinarily should know that he too is a human being who can forget things.

       However is some cases the student may be clearly wrong because he does not realize that there are two or more views on an issue. Therefore while his lecturer is stating the correct position based on knowledge the student is quoting the wrong view out of ignorance. The embarrassment he feels and the strained relationship with the lecturer may affect the mental state of the student .Sometimes people can abuse you and your family e.g. Racist remarks.

The internet can damage relationships, affect ability to interact with people properly and cause to personality disorder. Human beings typically have to live their lives by interacting with other human beings. The etiquette of dealing with others are taught to children over a long period. This is so important that a child is taught how to relate with others at home, in school, at religious places of worship and during other social events

Someone who spends a lot of time on the internet loses the opportunity to properly learn and practice social etiquette with real life people. He may become lonely because he sees the internet as his only friend. He may be chatting with a robot without knowing and may even come to believe that some rude behaviours are acceptable. Some internet chat friends will not tell him the truth because they don’t really care and just want somebody to chat with and make him feel good. Infact he can become aggressive, rude and even try harmful substances because his internet friends do same ane encourage him to do so

People can have their personality damaged by other internet users who make them feel insecure. No matter what they have at home, they may be told that they are poor, cheap and ordinary. This leads to mental stress as they develop unrealistic taste for things of this life. They can even start leading a false life by having an fake internet profile that will make them “belong” to their internet circle. In their heart of hearts they will know the truth and become depressed because they realize they cannot be the person in that profile.

This can surely tell us about the risk, advantage, disadvantage, of internet to the mental health…

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