Cameron Watson

UWRT 1102
Narrative Pitch IIP
How Does the Internet Affect Children?
How exactly does the Internet affect children? Everyone has their own bias view of the
internet and the negative or positive effects that it bestows upon children. Where are the facts
and the statistics? Is the internet actually harming the youth of America, or instead educating
them in a fashion that a human simply cannot. This is what I plan to study and hopefully prove.
The internet is not composed simply of rumors and games to distract children, the
internet is an educational portal that if used correctly and with productive intent, can propel ones
learning capacity. This is the ideal dream for the children of America. The internet is not only
educational, it improves hand eye coordination and reflexes for young youth. This is imperative
in a childs development and can give some an advantage in school physically.
The social effect of the internet can potentially be harmful if abused. Children can
possibly spend too much time on the computer surfing the web and not outside playing and
interacting with other children. This is an affect that can be monitored and controlled due to the
parents influence on the child. Moderate use of the internet for children has proven to be fine and
healthy. Children are even often known for teaching their parents how to use computers since
most parents didnt have the benefit of spending their years as youth indulged in a technological
warfare.

Children often abuse the internet socially. This can in the future be detrimental to the
childs security and safety. Consumer Reports reported last year that more than 7.5 million
American kids under the age of 13 have joined Facebook, which technically requires users to be
13 years old to open an account. Having social media accounts as a child under the age of 13 is
in no way beneficial to the childs mental development. It teaches the child social growth via a
computer screen and not face to face contact. By the time they're 2 years old, more than 90% of
all American children have an online history. At 5, more than 50% regularly interact with a
computer or tablet device, and by 7 or 8, many kids regularly play video games. Teenagers text
an average of 3,400 times a month. The fact is, by middle school, our kids today are spending
more time with media than with their parents or teachers,
These are just a view data points that I have collected from researching this topic. The
internet if used improperly can certainly harm children. It takes the right parents to monitor and
control their childs use of the internet in order for the web to benefit the child. It is not
impossible.