The internet is a major part of the lives of most students. There are many uses, including finding resources, staying up to date in their field, chatting with other students, social media, and online gaming. It's no wonder that many students find that time has slipped by unnoticed while they were online. However, as we are reminded by Katelyn McKenna and John Barge in their article The Internet and Social Life "time is a limited commodity, so that the hours spent on the Internet must come at a cost to other activities." Students and parents of young children are two groups of people who have very little spare time, in general. When hours of internet usage are added, it becomes a question of 'what activities are not being done in order to make time well spent?' If one looks into the past at previous technologies, the television is probably the closest ancestor of the internet. When the TV was introduced in the 1950's there was a significant drop in community involvement (Barge). This shows that there is cause for concern about face-to-face relationships suffering from new technologies.
Moreover, the correlation between internet usage and physical health has been called into question. In the article Health-related Behaviors and Technology Usage among College Students the results showed that "the more technology is used, the less advantageous it is for one's health, particularly as it pertains to sleep patterns, BMI, and healthy eating" (Melton). Finally, there is the concern of Internet Addiction. The National Center for Biotechnology Information defines Internet Addiction as "excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges or behaviors regarding computer use and internet access that lead to impairment or distress." According to the article Cognitive Failures and Internet Addiction Among University Students: An Exploratory Study by Ulfat Nisa, "students suffering from internet addiction are prone towards developing cognitive failures which can seriously hamper their performance.
