Internet Addiction and Abuse: A New Problem among Young People

Internet Addiction and Abuse: A new Problem among Young People Internet is a kind of network which a lot of people use it to exchange information, particularly young people. As the Internet gains its popularity at an amazing rate, it has become the most widely used network, and has permeated our modern lives at school, home, and work, in recent years. Using the Internet, people can chat with friends, shopping online, play online games, and so on. However, the power of Internet is observable, it also has some problems. For instance, the Internet brings about Internet addiction and abuse, Internet crime and Internet security. In this essay is to focus on the problem of Internet addiction and abuse among young people, find some solutions to address those problems and evaluate those solutions then find a better one.

Internet giving us the convenience and benefits at the same time there are some main negative phenomena are attributed to the Internet. While the number of the Internet users has increased, Internet addiction has become a rapidly growing problem. The Unitypiont Health of Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery defines cyber addiction as an impulse control disorder, which does not involve use of an intoxicating drug and is very similar to pathological gambling. Not only is there influence on teens, but adults are also hooked on the Internet. According to the Pew Research Center (2003), a dramatically grow is noticed in the amount of adults who use the Internet in the USA, from less than half of American adults in 2000 to approximately 59 per cent at the end of 2002. and as Greendfield (1999) surveys that the percentage of addictive use of the Internet stand cyber addiction is nearly 6 per cent.

Differ from traditional addictions (drug and alcohol addictions), Internet addiction generates some new addictions, such as internet gambling addiction, computer game addiction, and even online chat addiction. These new addictions have different negative influences on Internet users’ daily life. In addition, there are a certain proportion of the Internet users in pathological users. Li, Qi, Tao and Yao (2006) has found that when young people who over-reliance on a network surf the internet, their spirits are in a highly stressed state, after leaving the network, most of them are often dispirited and vision sluggish. Those pathological users are addicted to the virtual network and loss of interest in the real life, so that they have not sufficient energy to deal with study and work. Cyber addiction disorder phenomenon has seriously affected their normal life.

Due to the improvement of online management information system, employee Internet abuse and its potential threats have become another serious problem (Young, 2004). Cyber abuse is defined by Young (2010) as performing personal research that employees misuse the Internet during work hours lead to companies significant losses in job productivity, corporate liability and negative publicity. Stewart (2000) suggests that billions of dollars in lost revenue were attributed to employee Internet abuse.

The percentage of workers who surf the Internet during work hours to shop online, invest stocks, and even visit pornographic sites is about 25%, it led corporations to cost $5.3 billion in lost job productivity in 1999 according to Conlin (2000). Furthermore, Adschiew (2000) states that 37% employees surveyed admit that they spend work time surfing the Internet constantly. This behavior weakens people’s sense of responsibility continually, so that the corporate liability is affected. In addition, there has one survey found also that 83 per cent firms are worried about employee Internet abuse could damage the firm’s public image (“A Landmark Survey”, 2000).

In order to help alleviate those negative affects of the Internet in the modern life, some useful solutions have been suggested. Internet addiction is widely discussed by many research, generally the essential statement might be to prevent rather than to cure this disorder (Mitchell, 2000). The approach could be classified to three feasible functions. For one thing is self-control which contains regular online time, healthy diet and self-restrict. When the addicts could be aware of they might overuse the internet, the correction should be based on auto-criticism (http://www. video-game-addiction.org).

For another, the monitor could avoid some teenage dependent users. Parents or teachers should teach or persuade their children or students do not touch illegal or harmful information which may be more attractive than others. According to the McFadden (1999), the student in a critical college which do not allow illegal student user could be avoid use the internet overtime. In addition, if organizations and institutions may try to limit using the Internet, a rule should be considered as the important issue. As Young (2004) mentions “Free and unlimited Internet access” is attributed to the Internet Addiction Disorder.

In terms of the internet abuse, it is often happened in the workplace, so installing monitoring and blocking software on computers is the useful way to limit the time of employee Internet abuse. Besides, in order to ensure the company’s information security, it is important to make adequate insurance. As Bell (2008) argues “Wherever possible, obtain adequate insurance. Confirm that claims for defamation, patent, copyright and trademark infringement and other such claims are covered.” Finally, according to Foster (2001) has found, company should construct a positive organizational culture to reduce cyber abuse rather than address it by technology or policy alone, it is because cyber abuse is a cultural and human resources issue.

Overall, in the 21st century, the Internet plays a significant role for people’s life. Although, the Internet has positive influences on our daily life, the problems of the Internet not only affect everyone, but also affect the entire society. This article is focus on a main negative affects of the Internet on young people: Internet addiction and abuse. Meanwhile, some effective measures to solve these problems are also suggested. Helping with monitors through limiting the time of surfing the Internet, while it would ensure decline the cyber addiction, it would not reduce the amount of people who are hooked on the Internet and not beneficial to addicts learning self-restrict. Furthermore, installing blocking software and making adequate insurance is perhaps the useful way to avoid the Internet abuse, in particular in the aspect of employee Internet abuse.

This could not only reduce the rate of employees misuse the Internet during work hours, but also protect corporate information security. To some extent, however, the cost of software upgrade, insurance fees would increase. In addition, the most effective of those solution may be improve the system of law and institution by the government to control the Internet problems, because it would enhance young people’s awareness of legal network activities, but fixing a reasonable law or institution is difficult and a long-term. It is clear that none of these solutions by itself is sufficient to tackle the negative affects of the Internet, but a combination of these approaches might be valid.

References

Adschiew, B. (2000, June 24) A web of workers. NBC Nightly News [Television broadcast].New York: NBC. Conlin, J. M. (2000). Monitoring employees’ Internet activity: Invasion of privacy or simply good business practice? From http://www.itsecurity.com/papers/ esniff.htm accessed 13 July 2014 Greenfield, D. (1999). Virtual addiction: Help for net heads, cyber freaks, and those who love them. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Pew Internet Research Center. (2003). Internet use by region in the United States. from accessed 8 July 2014 Websense, Inc. (2000a, October 26). Landmark new survey shows employee Internet misuse goes beyond porn, but employer balance is needed. accessed 8 July 2014 The U.S. Department of Justice http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ accessed 13 July 2014 Stewart, F. (2000). Internet Acceptable Use Policies: Navigating the Management, Legal, and Technical Issues. Information Systems Security, 9 (3): 46-52. Young, K. (2010). Policies and procedures to manage employee Internet abuse. Computer in Human Behavior 26 (2010). Mcfadden, A. C. (1999). College Students’ Use of the Internet. Education Policy Analysis Archives. 7. Young, K. (2005). Internet addiction: A new clinical phenomenon and its consequences. Peace Research Abstracts. 42. For steps to reduce computer misuse and crime.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7312474_four-reduce-computer-misuse-crime.html accessed 8 July 2014 Bell, B. A. (2008). Reducing the Liability Risks of Employee Misuse of the Internet http://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/reducing-the-liability-risks-of-employee-misuse-of-the-internet.html accessed 8 July 2014 The Unitypiont Health of Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery accessed 13 July 2014 Li Hanping, Qi Fengrong, Taoran and Yao Shumin. (2006). The impacts of