Introduction
Technology is changing the world today in many ways enabling people to access almost everything with a click of a button. As the world embraces technological advances, there has been reported an increase in internet use among teenagers. Most teenagers today have never lived without the internet, which explains why they are termed tech-savvy and are quick to embrace any emerging technologies compared to the older generation. However, the rise of teens internet use has caused addiction have adversely affect their health. Since technology is a double-edged sword, lack of controlled use of the internet among teens has led to internet addiction, which causes health problems such as sleep deviation and depression.
Presentation of the Arguments That Wide Internet Accessibility Leads to Teenager Addition
Being born in a technological world, it becomes hard to control teens internet use. Many households have computers and laptops, and quite many teenagers have access to personal smartphones. Given the wide availability of such gadgets among teens, the technological consumption rate has increased, which leads to internet addiction that causes some health and psychological problems. (Agarwal et al., 2020) conducted a study to determine the internet addiction prevalence among teens in India and how it affects their quality of sleep. During the study, the researchers addressed the cause of teenager internet addiction that caused the health problems such as lack of quality sleep, among others.
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Premises: easy accessibility of the internet among teenager as lead to rising in internet addiction among them. The fact the teenagers are born in a world driven by technology is a source of teenager internet addiction that causes health problems such as sleep deprivation and depression because they tend to isolate themselves.
Conclusion: being born in the technological world, teenagers have broad access to the internet, which increase their screen time leading to internet addiction that brings about health problems such as sleep deprivation.
Evaluation of the Arguments
The study showed that internet prevalence among teens was about 78 %. This statistic shows that the internet is widely and easily accessible by many teenagers, which has enabled their presences on major online sites. Therefore, having a wide access to the internet, the screen time among teenagers has increases where most of them spend the better part of their day scrolling from site to site, which has caused a rise in internet addiction. Among the teenagers with access to the internet, about 53. 31 per cent of them have mild internet addiction, 43.77% experience moderate internet addiction, while 3% experienced severe addiction. The article using statistics showed that the higher the accessibility of the internet, the higher the teenager addiction that causes the health problems.
However, there still missing premises that shows what reasons cause screen addiction. According to the article, it is argued that easy access to the internet directly increased teenager screen time which leads to internet addiction. However, as much as the argument may sound true, an increase in internet penetration in the market cannot directly lead to internet addiction. Just because teenagers are born in an era of technological development does not translate to their internet addiction. There are other factors, such as parental influence, among others, that can cause the addition.
Presentation of Arguments That Wide Accessibility of Internet Does Not Lead to Teenage Addiction
It is undeniable that teenagers were born in an era where technology is changing the world. Many things can be accessed with just a click of a button. Just as other groups of society, teenagers have embraced the new technological advancement and have increased their social media and internet presence. However, one can argue that just because teenagers have been born in a technological world where they have easy access to the internet has cause screen addiction among these teenagers. Being born in such an era exposes them to a more considerable risk of internet addiction than the older generation.
Nevertheless, having a controlled internet use among teens lowers the risk of internet addiction even with their exposure. Cetinkaya (2019) did a cross-sectional study to determine the relationship between parental control and internet addiction among adolescent teens. In the study, the researcher examined the influence of parental control on the tendencies of internet usage among teenagers.
Premises: despites having easy internet access, the ability of the parents to control how much their teens use the internet by modelling their internet consumption behaviors reduces the teenager's internet addiction.
Conclusions: The ability of the parents to restrict their teenager’s internet usage reduces internet addiction among these teenagers’ despite being born in a technological world where they have easy access to the internet.
Evaluating the Opposing Arguments
The article addressed the fact that not all emerging technology is beneficial to a child. Having the child limited to the information they access from the internet will curb the advanced effects of internet use among teenagers. Technological development cannot be stopped since, every day, there will be new ones emerging. Cetinkaya (2019) argued that with parental guidance, it is possible to mitigate the risk of teenager internet usage. Therefore, parents can model their teens' internet behaviors by ensuring their children have controlled screen times and the site their visits. The article refuted the claims that being born in the technological world is what causes teenagers internet addiction. Cetinkaya (2019) showed that it is not the availability of the internet among teenagers that causes rather than uncontrolled interactivity with the internet.
Nevertheless, as much as the claims and the reasons are valid, there a limitation in the claim that parental control helps mitigate teenage internet addiction. Restricting teenagers on how they use the internet has both positive and negative impacts on them. One positive is reducing teenager internet addiction. Still, on the other hand, teenagers are cold tech-savvy because of their ability to increase their productivity and efficiency by leveraging technology to do their duties. Therefore, restricting them may lead to a lack of adequate exposure that limits their productivity. Thus, the question goes, what else would the parents do to control their teens' internet use so as to reduce their internet addiction without limiting their potential in a technological era like today?
Contrasting the Two Articles
Both the articles provided solid arguments on the causes of teenage internet addiction. However, the article by Agarwal et al. (2020) gives a generalized approached. The researchers evaluated the availability of the internet that can be easily accessible by teenagers and link it directly to increased teenager internet addiction. The researcher overlooked other factors that contribute to internet addiction. On the other hand, the article of parental control by Cetinkaya (2019) approached the causes of teenager internet addiction by narrowing it down to one specific factor that causes the addiction. Despite having access to the internet, which is the primary cause of internet addiction, the research reviewed the relationship between the parental guide and teenager internet addiction.
Conclusion
Increased inaccessibility of the internet has led to increased teenager internet addiction. The current teenagers have never lived in a world where there is no internet. Therefore, wide internet usage has led to increased internet addiction that causes the health problems such as sleep deprivation and depression. Nevertheless, just because these teens have been born in a technological world, their internet addiction cannot be directly attributed to access to the internet. Other factors, such as parental controls, shape internet usage among teenagers that can be directly linked to teen internet addiction.
References
Agarwal, A. K., Verma, A., Agarwal, M., & Singh, S. K. (2020, December). ADOLESCENTS SLEEP QUALITY AND INTERNET ADDICTION. Pediatric Oncall Journal, 17 (4), 116-120. https://doi.org/10.7199/ped.oncall.2020.49
Cetinkaya, L. (2019, January 15). The Relationship between Perceived Parental Control and Internet Addiction: A Cross-sectional study among Adolescents. CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, 10 (1), 55-74. https://doi.org/10.30935/cet.512531
