It is undoubted that the internet has revolutionised how people communicate, as the vast majority of communication now happens using social media. However, it is argued whether this is a positive change or not. This essay will discuss both points of view.
Starting with the advantages of this recent development, the major one, in my opinion, is that social media allow people to stay in contact even if they are miles away from each other. By the way, this is a very remarkable convenience that only new generations are able to experience and that is often taken for granted. Anyways, there is a relevant example to sustain this view, which regards my family. In fact, at the moment my younger brother is attending his fourth year of High school in the USA, since he took part in an exchange program, and the only way my family and I have to communicate with him is through social media, especially Whatsapp and Instagram.
Another considerable example of how social media can be very helpful these days is related with the pandemic that occurred in 2020. During that complex situation, we were all forced to stay home and did not have any chance to interact with each other, except using social media and the internet more generally. For instance, a website called “Houseparty” gained great popularity over that period because it allowed to create online chatrooms, where people could talk and see each other while playing some online game together.
By contrast, there are also many negative effects originated by the internet. In my personal view, the main one is that several people can develop an addiction to social media, which in some extreme cases can become their only “real life”. Furthermore, this can conduct them to isolation and to avoid any type of social contact, even at their own home. As an instance, “Hikikomori” is a term used to refer to people, mainly adolescents, that not only stay at home everyday, but they do not even get out of their own bedroom. Parenting this kind of children has to be very hurtful and hard, and the main cause to that is an abuse of social media, that slowly replace real life interactions.
In conclusion, I firmly believe that the world wide web is one of the most significant discovery in human history, however it needs to be regulated in order to avoid episodes like the one I mentioned before. Nonetheless, I sustain that the perks of this technology overweigh the drawbacks, therefore we need to keep improving and developing the internet functions and services.