for phyllis young

Cyber crimes

Internet has brought about cybercrimes. Criminals create computer viruses and spread them on internet. Without the updated anti-virus, these computer viruses have potential of permanently damaging the computer. Hackers can access other people’s accounts and get access to vital and confidential information. Confidential information from government offices has been leaked and made public with the help of internet. Hackers have also been successful in getting access to bank accounts and transfer huge sums of money to their accounts. Internet is also being used to spread threatening messages to some targeted group. Acts of terror is spread on internet to cause fear to the intended group of people. Social sites has been used to insult others. When one collided with another on some issues, you will find insulting and disgusting messages or photographs on social sites that harasses the intended person. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Evidence?

Inactivity

Over reliance on internet has brought about inactivity. Instead of engaging in physical activities during leisure time people nowadays spent it playing online games. Since internet has reduced a lot of travelling, people now spent much of their time on internet socializing with friends and doing other activities leaving out the physical activities. Studies has shown that lack of body exercises is the root cause of many problems occurring in the body. This state of inactivity has resulted in major harm to their bodies. Current diseases such as obesity, inertia and other health problems haves traced their roots from inactivity. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Evidence that proves the Internet is responsible?

Addiction

Research shows that after drugs and alcohol, internet comes as the third addictive thing. Psychiatrist called this kind of disease internet addiction disorder (AID). This is an out-of-control disorder that overwhelms the normal life of the affected. This comes after a long time exposure to internet tools such as games, gambling, explicit content, social sites and others. Short term effects of internet addiction includes; weight gain, unfinished tasks and forgotten responsibilities. Internet addiction has emotional effects such as depression and feeling of isolation which result as long term effects.

Loss of human touch

Internet is a virtual world. Interaction on internet does not involve face to face communication. Some people have become friends through internet but have never met in person. Friends interact on social sites as if they don’t know each other. This has destroyed the real world interactions. People currently engage more in social sites with virtual friends forgetting their close real friends who might not be on social sites like parents and grandparents. This has led to weak bonding between close family members and or friends. The result of this is social and cultural degradation since everyone now lives his/her own live as an individual (Farivar & Cerf, 2011). Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Can we see this evidence?

Laziness

Internet use encourages laziness. Whenever students are given assignments they just jump direct to the internet and searches them. From the search engines numerous related results are found, they copy and paste them as their own. Answers of some of the questions given by the lecturers are readily found on the internet. Students would right away copy the answers as they are. This makes the student not to take time to understand and get to know how to approach the problem. On the other hand internet make lecturers lazy. Content to be taught in class can be easily found on internet. Some do rely on these internet resources and failed to prepare lecture content of their own. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Couldn’t this also be an upside for lecturers as well? It does allow teachers from across the world to share ideas and lessons.

Not all the information on internet are is accurate

Another big setback with internet is the nature of its information. Results of search engines are numerous. Some of this information are is not accurate. Search engines does not use accuracy to rank websites containing the searched information. Unlike academic publications, no one regulates the information on internet. There is danger of a learner or researcher getting inaccurate information in the cause of the research.

Time wastage Comment by Justin Mundhenk: This section sounds similar to previous sections on laziness and lack of worker productivity.

Internet is becoming popular day by day. Internet use is taking over every aspects of our lives. People tend to take more time on internet than doing other useful things. Students in schools spent less time in their studies but more on the internet. Many other people from all works of life tend to waste more time on internet doing less meaningful things like socializing with their friends. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Will need evidence.

Wastage of money

With rise of online buying many people have been influenced to buy things which that they may have not needed. Some cases of theft have also been reported where a buyer transfers money to some virtual person for buying of some items but the seller just disappear after receiving the money. Also online based business have been reported to be scammers. When they have accumulated huge sums of money they just disappear. Forex and stocrk market have gained huge popularity but many people have lost their hard earned money. A person who is yet to receive enough experience in forex and stoke market just pump in a lot of money in to these online institutions only to blow up their accounts. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Needs evidence.

Conclusion

Internet is a very important tool in our current living. This very important tool need to be utilized with caution. Internet user who is unaware of the underlying setbacks of internet is more likely to be overcame by these setbacks. From the internet discussion above, it can be clearly seen that cons far outweigh pros in number and degree of effects. It can be also seen that internet is the root cause of most of the evils that we currently face as the society. From corruption of morality, ever rising internet crimes, loss of human touch, internet addiction, work efficiency and wastage of time are all evils which came with internet. It is clear that internet has not increased intelligence. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Not at this moment. Comment by Justin Mundhenk: This hasn’t been established either.

Sarah,

A few suggestions:

Evidence: First and foremost, we need to see more evidence in this paper. There are a few in-text citations, which suggest paraphrasing, but there’s never really any use of sources to support claims in this paper. That’s especially true when it comes to sections focusing on the negative aspects of the Internet. The conclusion makes the case that the Internet has had a profound, negative impact on society as a whole; however, there isn’t any actual evidence supporting this conclusion.

Intro Sources: Furthermore, I’d like to see you introduce your sources. Name the authors, tell us what they do, the title of the article, and what the article is about. Give us direct quotes from the source. This will go a long way in establishing credibility for your sources and your argument.

Conclusion: Finally, I’d like to see you expand your introduction. You claim that it’s clear to see that the Internet has done more harm than good, and part of that is because you include more negative examples than positives. Someone could easily make a reverse argument in which they include more positives than negatives. Also, some claims just don’t hold up, such as the ones about deterioration of morality and economy. One could easily argue that immorality has always existed, the Internet just makes us more aware of such immorality. As for the economy, one could argue that the Internet has simply disrupted the current economy and, besides, economies are constantly evolving with time (for example, the US was once largely an agrarian society, but over time, with the growth of manufacturing, steel, etc., the economy changed, just like it has with the Internet).

I hope the comments help. Let me know if you have any questions.

Justin Mundhenk

Reference Comment by Justin Mundhenk: Sources should be arranged alphabetically and follow proper MLA citation style. Much of these look like APA.

Farivar, C., & Cerf, V. (2011). The Internet of elsewhere. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Cakrani, E. (2013). Technology and Privacy, Internet Effects on Privacy. MJSS. doi:10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p279.

Weber, R., & Weber, R. (2010). Internet of things. Berlin: Springer.

Tamia, R. (2013). WELCOME TO BLOG~GUE: Top 10 Negative Effects of Internet on Students. Retnotamia.blogspot.com. Retrieved 29 July 2015, from http://retnotamia.blogspot.com/2013/04/top-10-negative-effects-of-internet-on.html

Feenberg, A. (2012). (Re)Inventing the internet critical case studies. Rotterdam: Sense.