In recent times, we can admit that the internet has been a tool that has satisfied most of our needs, whether they are to do with entertainment or education. In fact, the internet is nowadays indispensable in our daily lives as it provides information that is difficult to find in traditional sources such as books and encyclopedias. Fortunately, it is clear that the benefits of the internet are outweighing the costs in many fields such as education.
Firstly, the internet provides smooth access to information. For example, more than 40,000 google queries are searched per second and more than 149,513 emails are sent each minute. Moreover, as of October 2020 almost more than half of Earth’s population has access to the internet as (4.66 billion). Secondly, the internet provides us with insights from various perspectives, countries and cultures which allows us to understand how other people think. Finally, the internet also gives us access to other people’s lives through their blogs and YouTube videos. Although the internet affects our lives in different ways, it has been proven to be extremely valuable during the pandemic.
The importance of the internet in education comes from the fact that it makes it easier for students to gain access to information and review the lessons they have learned in school. When specifically looking at the impact of the internet on education, it is clear that it is mostly used for online classes as it provides a platform for communication as well as a store of information.
How has the pandemic affected the use of paper and the environment?
The pandemic led to the internet being used more often and students became obliged to undergo online learning instead of going to school and using notebooks. For this reason, there was a lower demand for paper, which overall was better for the environment, as it reduced cutting trees.
The global disturbance resulting from the pandemic has caused a large impact on the environment. The worldwide decrease in recent human activity such as travel and has caused a huge fall in air pollution and water pollution in various countries.
However, the benefits of the internet don’t only accrue in education, it’s also used in industries such as art, film-making, interior designing, and nutrition, providing utility for a range of different subjects.
The negative effects of the internet on young people
As said casually by many people, social media can actually cause addiction for some people. Numerous amounts of time is spent on the Internet by people looking for entertainment, reading, or working. Young people use the internet for many reasons other than education, which can lead them to spend the whole day on social media, YouTube, or other types of distractions.
We cannot deny that the Internet allowed us to reach new creations in recent times. However, the internet has also led to an increase in violent tendencies in some people. This is because of the violent videos widely accessible on the internet or some bad trends that people follow blindly.
The internet also overworks the brain. If a person uses the internet in most of their free time, it will make their brain work at a higher capacity than normal and hence it won’t have much space for managing day-to-day tasks.
For example, if a person lays in bed for hours with their phone or laptop in hand, providing them with access to everything they need, there will be no need for them to get out of their comfortable bed. There will also be no need for them to go to the bookstore to buy any books. He can easily just download it on his phone, or never go to school cause he got all his lessons in hand, and probably just learn them in bed. This causes laziness and never going out of the house making them so unproductive, which may cause health problems and so on. In addition, students’ creativity turned out to be much poorer than at any other times.
How different are internet speeds across the globe?
It is also important to keep in mind that problems in WI-FI speeds still exist throughout the globe. There are varying internet speeds across different countries, resulting in many difficulties and the inability of taking online classes for students in countries where the internet connection is poor.
Shown below are connection speeds for some countries provided by Speedtest.net, a website that tracks internet speed statistics on a global level
Mobile Network connection speeds:
| Rank | Country | Average connection speed (Mbit/s) |
| #1 | United Arab Emirates | 177.16 |
| #25 | Belgium | 64.95 |
| #50 | Montenegro | 42.68 |
| #75 | Guatemala | 28.40 |
| #100 | Belize | 20.97 |
Fixed Broadband connection speeds:
| Rank | Country | Average connection speed (Mbit/s) |
| #1 | Singapore | 238.59 |
| #25 | Netherlands | 138.14 |
| #50 | Saudi Arabia | 82.44 |
| #75 | Kosovo | 49.03 |
| #110 | Congo | 26.86 |
As we can see, the fixed broadband connection speeds are generally higher than mobile network speeds, however, the range of speeds varies across different countries.
Survey
As aforementioned, we can find various positive effects that the internet has on education. After conducting a survey within a pool of 10 students on how many benefits can be found when assessing the impact of the internet on education, the results varied:
- 3 students were able to find 3 benefits.
- 6 students found about 4 to 5 benefits.
- 1 was able to find 6 benefits.
Some of the benefits described by the students:
- The internet provides educational material on important topics that are not taught in school nor discussed in day-to-day life.
- The internet provides clarity of how foreign life is for students interested in studying abroad.
- Online communication with different people across the world allows students to share thoughts, beliefs, inventions, talents, and to find like-minded people who are willing to help students grow.
- Online schooling through a pandemic makes learning a lot safer, students can still get the information they need to graduate as they sit safely in their own homes social distancing from others.
Some of the problems also described by the students:
“Online communication causes a lack of face-to-face communication.”
“ The internet is such a waste of time; we lost all our creativity ever since it entered our lives.”
“Online learning made us so inactive and lazy.”
After assessing the results of the survey, it became clear that the benefits of the internet outweigh the costs for some students, when considering it in an educational context.
To sum it all up, we can mostly find various positive effects that the internet has had on education and on teenage life. However, given that the internet has become integral to our day-to-day lives, it is arguable that the negative effects (that we all need to keep an eye out for) do not outweigh the various benefits that the internet provides to every field of work or entertainment.