Dealing with internet overuse

How overuse of the internet is affecting the young generation is often the stuff of various researches and studies. The Sunday (11 June) issue of this paper on its Metro/News page published a report that deals with such a study, titled, "Impact of internet use on students' mental health: How much caution is necessary?".
The study headline itself points to a need for caution about the use of this digital electronic medium of mass communication that connects the entire world.And the findings also show that those belonging to the age group of 20 to 25 years are most impacted by internet use. And, of course, here the focus is on the negative aspect of the impact. However, the study, as reported, addresses the internet in general and does not distinguish between the particular sites such as the educational or the entertainment-oriented ones, the social or the mainstream media platforms connected to it (the internet)that are affecting the students negatively. In fact, the internet has a thousand and one kinds of use. To be frank, with the IT revolution, the internet is becoming the only way, not just one of the ways, to access information. The print media is already fighting for its existence. The old electronic media dependent on analogue signals are giving way to digital formats. Books, even entire libraries, are now in digital format and connected to the internet. In short, most human communications and transactions are now based on the internet. Students, too, are becoming more and more dependent on it for their studies and researches. So, there is no question of whether or not the student should use the internet. The question is rather about how to use it in a way that does not affect them negatively.
The issues brought to the fore by the researchers behind the particular study under review undoubtedly deserve serious attention of all concerned.
The concerns raised are universal. So, far as the students are concerned, their lifestyle isincreasingly becoming sedentary. Books in printed format may cause fatigue after long hours of reading. But the internet has many more entertaining contents to distract a student than the subjects of her/his study. And it is these other contents including those of the different social media, games and other forms of video platformsthat can keep a boy or a girl glued to his/her seat for hours on end. Admittedly, that is the most concerning part of the use of the internet whether it is on the personal computer or laptop inthe students' study room or ontheir smartphones.Perhaps, the smartphone is the kind of digital device that is doing more harm than good in this respect.
An article published a few years back in the prestigious American scientific journal, Scientific American (SA), on the impact of smartphone on teenagers came up with observations similar to the ones highlighted in the present study under review. In fact, in the article, it was questioned if the digital device, the smartphone, was actually destroying the lives of teenagers. The gadget, the SA articlewent, was making the teenagers 'more depressed, more anxious and anti-social'.
'Some of the troubling effects of smartphone use may involve less sleep.'
So, what should be done to address this new information technology's destructive impact on the young generation? Abandon the technology, or stop its abuse? Technology including even artificial intelligence (AI) does not do anything good or bad on its own. It all depends on its human operators.
The internet and the problems arising from its overuse or abuse is an emerging field of study. The more such studies are done to understand the positive and negative aspects of the use of the internet or of the IT in general, the better would societybe able to come to grips with the new technology.

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