Why do we love the internet so much?

This article was written by Stella Fonyat, Year 8

Well we are going to talk about our love for the internet. Firstly, there is a 99% chance you are reading this online right now. The average screen time in the U.A.E is 8 hours and 36 minutes so that already says a lot. Even if you have a screen time limit, you will always manage to find a way out. Now the real question is: why are we so addicted? Also, being addicted to something is not always good like in this case.

The main reason:

People say that it’s because it provides information and helps you but that’s not always the case. Nowadays even dogs are playing games on iPads. Apparently, it also connects you to people. Although, many people say that it’s not that. People who create apps are smarter than we all think as they have to make something interesting that will keep you on the whole time. I have heard cases where some games have been banned and people went crazy. I understand that we all love the internet including me, (well at least most of us!), but some of our parents are right when they say to keep a good two hours online. Now when you are home and your phone dies, you won’t be like ‘okay that’s fine!’ You will try to immediately find a source of charging because your brain is telling you to.They say that adults typically use the internet for work but we children use it for mostly leisure.Children are said to need daily life experiences not the online world experiences. Many people don’t realise eating in games won’t feed you in real life, sleep won’t either, nor sports. These impact the SDT (social determination theory) framework.

Positives and negatives: 

There can be many positives as you can make friends and meet new people. You can also find professions in gaming or just tech in general which can help you in the future so go online. But not for too long because then it isn’t great. Now I could name many negatives but I won’t. This is because you probably know many things already and you won’t want to hear it. First of all staying online before sleep is not good at all because you will be wide awake. Also, for many people, the first thing you think of when you wake up is the internet for example: ‘Did my post get likes?’ or ‘OMG! How many views did I get?’ Or even ‘Can I hatch the dragon egg I had to wait 24 hours for?’ So there can be many negative aspects.

Conclusion: 

I hope this article you have read will give you motivation but also a reminder to check your screen time. It will help your SDT and also the way you react in daily life.This can help you so much too.

Thank you for reading.