

Technology is now an imperative part of our everyday lives and sustaining without it seems impossible. Right? Internet allows us to do a lot be it email, Facebook, Google, and a lot other activities. We have direct access to so many of amazing tools and are using Internet on the regular basis in our daily lives. It changed the way we communicate with each other, execute business tasks and the way we get entertained. Internet comes around as the perfect weapon to communicate from any location and at any time. Today business organizations can expand to various locations of the globe via internet. So how is internet important?

Can you imagine your life without Internet?

Would have this world seem the same as it is now without Internet?

Can you manage both personal life and professional life the way you do now without Internet?

Are not you going to answer in negative to all these questions? Well, that’s apparent considering the significance of Internet. It’s a colossal library comprising of documents, files, images, videos, content and websites. Unlimited amount of data is frequently added to this library from different mediums and in different formats. We use internet regularly in our daily life and it is indeed a gift of modern science for common people.

How Did Internet Impact Daily Human Life?

Guess even a common person can count this over his fingers quite easily. Reason being, the list is endless, still here we pen down the major ones:

Internet offers rapid development of business with more number of business persons selling their products online.

Students have easy access to academic information required by them

You can apply online for jobs, simply using your fingertips

Connect to your long-lost friends via social networking sites

Share images and videos with your friends using internet

Stay updated of happenings around the world reading news online

Send and receive money over internet, quickly

Get information from any arena quite easily

Send email from anywhere and to anywhere around the world at low cost

You can play games

Shop from eCommerce websites

So How Many Internet Users We Have Around The World?

Going by the current statistics, around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. United Nations agency states that more than 3 billion people are now using the internet and from 738 million in 2000 the number went on to increase 3.5 billion in 2016. This huge increase brought Internet penetration up from 7% to 43% of the global population.

Evidently the internet has taken control over our everyday lives. But did you ever notice how all this screen time affects our brains? Is it really the tool helping you out? Or something causing more harm than good?

The word addiction in itself sounds scary, doesn’t it? Now it can be any kind of addiction but the bottom line is that ultimately every kind hurts and one among them is Internet addiction. It’s definitely not for the first time that we hear someone pairing internet with mental health as it’s quite prevalent and always get a bad reputation. There are countless horrifying stories telling how internet addiction leads to bad results. Yes, the outcomes are serious and there are even cases where people are taken against their will and forced into “internet addiction rehabilitation.” Yes, it happens. And the worrying part is that the number is growing simultaneously.

Someone said it right that extreme of anything is just not good.

Nowadays we literally live our lives on the Internet but beware of the fact that excessive Internet and social media use badly impacts your mental health. Despite it being an useful tool for education, work, social networking and entertainment, its overuse can take a tool on your health.

Did You Ever Notice That Using Internet Makes You Happy? How And Why?

Nowadays access to the internet comes around as a basic necessity. We see people going online for news, weather forecasts, social interaction, shopping, travel research and booking, social interaction, financial information or any kind of information, and a lot more. So now that people have become accustomed to use internet and just imagine that they are cut off from it. Certainly it is going to result in anger, frustration, despair and somewhere it creates a sense of being disconnected. This is why people get happy when they get access to the Web. Research shows that adults who never access Web scale on same happiness levels with those feeling happier using it.

Did You Ever Search Your Illness On Internet?

Well, doctors advice not to and rightly so. One of the physician averred that he noticed when his patients read too much negative news or researched symptoms online – spending too much time on computer – it increased their anxiety.

“More times than not, it’s not a good idea to research your health symptoms online because the final outcome is a lot of unnecessary anxiety and worry. My overall advice is not to research your symptoms, but to see a doctor first if you have a health concern,” stated a primary care physician at Piedmont, Saju Mathew.

Internet Use Disorder (IUD):

Internet Use Disorder (IUD), this is the term used by mental health professionals for internet addiction. A person falls under it when s/he prefers internet over face to face relationships, the behavior is beyond control and it takes up most of their attention. Quite obviously, they develop sleep disorders and it starts affecting their relationships and impacts professional life. Among the major causes of IUD are online gaming, pornography and social networking.

Other Potential Effects:

Do you know the major trigger to anxiety is internet? When the people don’t limit their internet usage, it affects them in negative ways. Like when you read too much of tragic news stories online, it leads to despair and anxiety disorders. Often the negative comments on social media channels cause irritation and anger while missing on sleep owing to internet can lead to depression, irritability, relationship problems and a loss of mental focus.

Is There A Way To Overcome This Issue?

Start by having control over the time you spend online and what matters the most is what you do when you are online. Keep a check on your behavior and note that what it is during your internet activity that makes you angry. Is social-sites reason for your bad behavior or does it makes you angry to read negative comments on your posts? If that’s the case then stop quit participating way too often. Same is for any kind of site that you visit regularly. If you feel bad after being there, it’s doing no good to your mental health.

In many ways, internet is a mirror of society as a whole. What you decide to participate in is going to determine whether Internet comes around as a help or hindrance to have good mental wellbeing.

It’s all about how you use. If not used correctly, it may prove to be lethal and when used in the right manner, it certainly has myriad of benefits. Hence, rightly so, it’s all on ‘YOU’.