Computer addiction: the internet of hell in our lives

Incredible facts

Today, August 23, the world celebrates Internship Day, a person who is a very active Internet user. Therefore, we decided to talk about what the Internet means in modern life.

How often do you find yourself reading some text from the screen again? Most likely, this is not the first page today, over the past month, and far from the first in many years. The Internet has become a must-have in our lives, without which few people can imagine their existence.

Also read: 7 easy ways to increase your internet speed

This wouldn't be special if the world didn't start crossing the line from the screen, giving life to computer addiction. Today we will talk about the popularity of the Internet, what full immersion in it leads to, as well as the impact of online communication on a person.

Let's start with some statistical information. In the modern world, almost 4 billion people have access to the World Wide Web (of which about 3.5 billion have their own social networks), more than 5 billion people use mobile phones by phones, the audience of Internet users is increasing by 1 million people every day. For the CIS countries, we will also add another number of “funny” statistics: people surf the Internet for about 6.5 hours a day.

No one would deny that we're too caught up in wanting to be online all the time today. For example, if you go on any type of public transport, you will not be able to meet your eyes with more than half of the people because they are immersed in their gadgets. A common sight is to walk into a cafe and see a couple of friends sitting across from each other and enthusiastically looking at something on their phones.

In the park, people walking their pets do not forget to keep their eyes on the phone at the same time. In the same place, in the park, there are people sitting on benches who, admiring the beauty of nature, scroll through friends' news feeds on social networks.

Wherever a person goes, his phone is always with him. Phones also have close relatives: a laptop, a desktop computer, a TV and a tablet. In recent years, this family has only been growing, because now you can access the Internet from both the watch and the player, and the military even wears clothes that can surf the Internet.

What is computer addiction?

Any collaboration comes at a price. No matter how proud humankind is of our achievements, it often happens that we are unable to cope with them ourselves. One of the varieties is the desire to never let go of an electronic device, while at the same time giving it all your free time and more.

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Statistics show that 50-90 percent of the population has Internet addiction, and this wide percentage range is due to the fact that the assessment is based on different criteria and forms dependencies. This suggests that, at best, half of the globe is unable to control its contact with the Internet world.

But maybe it's not as bad as we think? For example, everyone is dependent on oxygen, but this does not cause us any more problems in life. Let's explore what impact the Internet can have on us if we give it an overly important role.

What are the dangers of computer addiction?

No control

A person always expresses dissatisfaction when he is limited in something. Does anyone sympathize with their superiors for ordering you and for being superior to you? A person really does not like incomprehensible laws aimed at belittling his rights.

Virtual reality gently invites us to be free to express ourselves the way we want, because what we do online can be said to be out of control. What do we end up with? A person doesn't think what he's doing. It leaves a huge amount of hate online.

Network junk

Officially, the Internet is a great source of information, but, as mentioned above, the almost complete absence of any control has led to what we have now. A large number of people create a huge amount of information that, in fact, no one but the person himself needs.

Read also: How to completely disappear from the Internet: 12 simple steps

The Internet is home to a huge number of stupid sites, unnecessary ads, spam, images and thoughts that do not haunt anything at all. For this reason, the Internet is beginning to lose its original function, because it is very difficult to clean up all this junk to find something worthwhile today.

“You can find anything you're not looking for on the internet.” Anna Ruman.

Too much information

Today, there are approximately 1.2 billion websites on the Internet, and every two years the amount of information on the Internet is doubling. Our curiosity, which is impossible to control, comes hand in hand with this.

The human brain works every day with crazy amounts of information that it receives from a wide variety of sources. This includes news, memes that have become very popular in recent years, and videos, and various images, and much more. What we end up with is a brain that's just full of information we don't need at all.

Let's analyze the situation using news as an example. News is a fairly large part of what we consume online. However, it is impossible to be sure that they are true, because they are written by people who have seen something themselves or heard something from another person. Government agencies can also introduce amendments, because this way it is very easy to control the human consciousness of their citizens, who “eat” a huge amount of news every day.

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Here we already clearly see a path through which information passes and changes very, very much. So is it even wise to spend your time and attention watching the news? What can we get from this?

Constant exercise of consciousness

A person's endless love for information, combined with addiction to a computer, has a negative impact on the brain's ability to work for the benefit of its owner. Resources are needed to receive, process and store data. At the moment, these resources are being spent on learning everything necessary and unnecessary that we absorb from the Internet every day.

Any quality thought needs space, but when our brain is busy all the time, it just runs out of space to generate important ideas for life. For this reason, a person has forgotten how to draw the right conclusions from different situations. He has forgotten how to make decisions, he doesn't know how to solve problems, he doesn't know where to go.

Loss of observation

Why is what is online so popular? It's very simple: here a person is watching what is happening in the world around him, here a person wants to keep up with the times, does not want to be left behind. This is a good aspiration, but it is rather strange to implement it by reading the news on the Internet, considering what we talked about above.

Read also: Experts: The Internet makes us smarter and dumber

On the Internet, we read about the relations between different countries today, but at the same time, we have no idea what color the birds that sing under our window every morning are. It is impossible to spy on the world with your own gadget. Instead of his eyes, a person chooses other people's words, and this has nothing to do with observation.

Loss of identity

The Internet is home to an endless number of stories, opinions and various life information. When a person reads all this, he develops his own attitude and vision of the world piece by piece. However, in all this he loses something very important — his own opinion, and after all, personality is the main weapon of any of us.

The Internet has become a teacher of not the best things today. A person copies his own kind in everything he can, instead of being an observer and doing something of his own. People strive to be like each other, and we have become afraid to stand out and be unique, despite the fact that this is where the greatness of each of us is hidden.

“It's better to have multiple personalities than no personality at all.” Karl Lagerfeld.

Search for existing solutions

Since the modern Internet is a huge knowledge base, people like to look for ready-made solutions here. For example, a person often looks for existing solutions to problems that he cannot solve on his own.

This concept is perfectly evident when analyzing search queries. For example, “how to hang a shelf on the wall”, “what to do when it's boring”, “how to find a common language with a person”, “how to become yourself”, “how to become successful”, etc. questions would only make the interviewee wonder: “Why are you interested in this, just take it and do it to understand.”

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This human desire suggests that the vast majority of people want to ride sleds without lifting them up the hill. But that's not possible. Modern people want to obtain information without paying attention to the most important and reliable moment of obtaining it — experience.

We are all different from each other, we each have our own way of thinking, a set of personal characteristics and opportunities, and each of us lives in different conditions. For this reason, what one person wrote about his experience on the Internet is not always suitable for another person.

Fear of problems

Computer addiction has turned any human action into something that is not the most comfortable for everyday life. People don't like to move anymore, which is why there are so many services and services online. Today they can bring you absolutely everything: groceries, massages, you can even build another house without leaving your own home.

As a result, a person faces serious problems in solving difficult issues. A person does not understand what to do with his difficulties, and he cannot do anything, because he does not have any instructions on his hands. And it's not far from a mistake. The Internet will certainly not solve the real problem.

There are no actions, no development is taking place, no experience is being gained, this is all the result of our laziness.

The insignificance of virtual actions

Some might say that people are also quite active on the Internet. In fact, this is true, in the virtual world, a person can do anything, but the important point is the world without consequences. And everything a person does online is just a weak parody of actions in real life.

Remember, of all the significant events in your life, at least one happened on the Internet? Basically, what changes after you post another comment, post a new photo of yourself, or watch a new video?

Wasting time

How many of us don't like to rant about not having enough money, time, or skills to have a good life. But at the same time, we continue to spend our time on the Internet. Almost 7 hours a day is about a third of the waking time that can be wasted. That is, the network steals both a person's identity and time.

Read also: Famous Internet terms and their origins

Health effects

Another feature that distinguishes computer addiction is the very poor physical activity of a person, which has a strong impact on health. It's really hard to be on the move when you're immersed in a computer or phone.

How often do you meet someone whose back is straight? How often do you see people wearing glasses? With the help of movement, our body keeps itself in good shape. The amount of activity in our lives is directly related to our hormonal levels, which, in turn, have a direct impact on a person's mood, the functioning of his internal organs and entire systems.

In fact, it's not so easy to love the world around you when you don't feel very good with a dozen extra pounds. When a person is healthy, he is much more likely to be happy, however, the 21st century is an age of temptations that are quite difficult to induce to be healthy.

Online communication

Computer addiction, which is expressed in the fact that a person is online all the time, has made it much easier to find any of us on the Internet. Therefore, the network has become one of the most common methods of communication in our lives.

But what does this deprive us of?

Nature gave each of us our own aura, facial expressions, intonation, body language and the opportunity to feel everything around us. All this so that we can express our thoughts to another person in a very accessible way.

“The only luxury I know is the luxury of human communication.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Can a parenthesis replace a lively smile? Can human energy travel by wire? Are we able to send our tone or gestures in a message? So what are we doing? Can this be called communication?

Read also: The Internet destroys the brain as much as alcohol and drugs

When we send someone a message, we give the other person far less than we can. As a result, he does the same thing, although the true essence of human communication is quite different.

When we choose to communicate online, we are depriving ourselves of a huge supply of tools. Now we understand each other much worse, because we end up with an anonymised text that is easy to perceive as we want, and not as the author intended.

Online communication means even more active involvement in the virtual world, because it is now also becoming a place for joint leisure.

Changing attitudes towards people

Since communication became available to us after just a couple of clicks, the importance and frequency of face-to-face meetings have significantly decreased. Not only have these meetings become very rare, but their quality has also been severely affected. Today we easily neglect our partner, freely allowing ourselves to sit on the phone during real communication. But the people around us are one of the most important aspects that make up the meaning of our lives!

When we are in touch with a particular person all the time, we begin to value them much less. It's hard to appreciate something when you have it in the right quantity all the time — this is a standard principle of human life that can be attributed to each of us.

For this reason, during personal meetings, we stumble into our phones, squeezing out an offer every couple of minutes to keep up a sluggish conversation. We think that nothing bad is happening, because we can send everything we don't have time to say in a message later.

We lose communication skills

You don't need to choose intonations online; you can think for a very long time before writing something. And if you suddenly find yourself inattentive, you can simply scroll back and reread the message you want. This is a very primitive way of communication, however, it is much more common. For this reason, we automatically adjust and at the same time lose some of our skills.

Unfortunately, real communication has become less valuable because of this. Dialogues are now rather boring and monotonous, and the interlocutors have almost forgotten how to express their emotions. There are a lot of parasitic words in speech, and there are always very awkward pauses when a person tries to find a suitable answer.

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It turns out that a person does not want to go anywhere, smell good and watch what he says, and even not go online at this time. In general, real communication has become something extremely difficult for us.

Disunity

The original purpose of creating the Internet was to unite people from different parts of our world, but it is paradoxical that it separates even those who sit in the same room. As a result, all this inevitably leads to loneliness.

Communication at a distance has led to the fact that a person has become very distant from society as a whole. And society in the usual sense for each of us is almost non-existent, because each of us is becoming on our own.

Due to the lack of a proper level of practice, a personal one-on-one conversation has become very stressful for a modern person, because for such a conversation, a person is already quite squeezed into contact is very difficult. Thus, the main method of acquiring and providing information has been lost, and communication in the virtual world is not of high quality. This is confirmed by people's feelings of isolation and loneliness.

“Who said the Internet brings us closer together? No! This is a treasure trove of loneliness. It's like the two of us, but we're actually on our own. This is all an illusion: an illusion of friendship, communication and life.” Janusz Vishnevsky.

If we think sensibly, this situation, on the contrary, should lead people to start getting closer again, this state of affairs just screams that people should come into contact with each other more often a friend. However, as long as we have a virtual world at hand, we will use it to try to deal with our loneliness. That's why we constantly watch some movies, play and drown more and more depending on the computer.

In this article, we talked about the negative consequences that the Internet has brought and is bringing, not to make networks anti-advertising. We're not talking about cutting off all the wires and complaining to the provider about the awkward life.

We just covered the issue from all sides, showing how the Internet affects our lives. The current situation definitely needs to be improved, but that's another story. The main thing is that there is room for thought. Finally, we would like to share with you some interesting facts about the virtual world.

Read also: Internet addiction is a genetic mutation

1) In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee created the first web page that still exists today. This page contains information about what the Internet is, how to install a server, browser, and other reference data.

2) In 1837, Vladimir Odoevsky wrote in his novel “4338” that telegraphs are stretched between different houses, through which those who live very far from each other communicate with each other. By the way, the Russian writer never finished his utopian novel, but, apparently, predicted the emergence of a virtual world.

3) As you know, the idea of combining all computers with each other appeared back in 1957 at the American Research and Development Agency. However, what is the Internet today (namely HTML and HTTP) was born during research by the European Nuclear Council. Tim Berners-Lee, already known to us, has put forward a proposal to improve the internal exchange of documents through hyperlinks. It all happened in 1989. Subsequently, it was this secondary project that became the Internet.

4) This may sound fantastic, but it's true: there are 7 special programmers in the world who hold the so-called keys to the World Wide Web. The word “keys” in this case means special electronic systems that contain a cipher. It can be used to completely reboot the network. That is, if a global attack by hackers suddenly occurs, these programmers will immediately arrive at the US military base, where the Internet will be turned off.

5) Most experts say that it is impossible to completely turn off the Internet. They are sure of this due to the fact that WLAN routers do not have a single point of control.

However, in 2012, a well-known hacking team said it would “kill” the entire Internet. Then they managed to kill 13 important servers. Fortunately, however, the attempt failed. In fact, in order to completely kill 13 root servers (in fact, dozens of data centers), you need to flood them for at least two days.

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6) The very first webcam was tested in 1991 as part of a study by the University of Cambridge. She had only one goal: to control one coffee maker and report when coffee was running out.

7) The first video that was uploaded to Youtube was about its founder Javed Karim, who is also one of PayPal's developers.

8) Sergey Brin and Larry Page spent a long time thinking about naming their search engine so that the name would express an insane amount of data that could be processed by the system. One of the team suggested naming the search engine “Google”, as this is the name for the number consisting of 1 and 100 zeros. When checking a name for employment, a person made the mistake of writing googol instead of googol, but Larry approved this new word.

9) By 2025, the World Wide Web will be high on the list of basic human needs. Experts from a well-known sociological center came to this conclusion. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, by about 2025, people will not think about whether there is the Internet or not, because the World Wide Web will become a matter of course and present by default. Like electricity today, for example.

10) Today, about 3.5 billion people use the World Wide Web, and more than half of this number are from Asian countries. Among other things, the number of requests the network receives every day is also impressive. For example, Google alone processes about 5-6 billion searches per day.

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