internet

LEARNING SKILLS FOR OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNERS

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES

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OUMH1103


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ASSIGNMENT TITLE:

A) THE IMPACT OF INTERNET TO OUR SOCIETY

B) FOUR BENEFITS OF THE INTERNET TO THE STUDENTS AND FOUR

DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF THE INTERNET ON STUDENTS

C) LOGICAL SUGGESTIONS TO REDUCE THE DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF

INTERNET USAGE AMONG STUDENTS

Name:

Matric number:

NRIC:

Telephone number:

E-mail address:

Tutor’s name:

Learning Centre:

SEPTEMBER 2012 Semester

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TABLE OF CONTENT PAGE NUMBER

A) THE IMPACT OF INTERNET 3

TO OUR SOCIETY

B) FOUR BENEFITS OF THE INTERNET 4

TO THE STUDENTS AND FOUR DETRIMENTAL

EFFECTS OF THE INTERNET ON STUDENTS

C) LOGICAL SUGGESTIONS TO REDUCE 8

THE DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF INTERNET

USAGE AMONG STUDENTS

D) CONCLUSION 8

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A) THE IMPACT OF INTERNET TO OUR SOCIETY

Have ever feel frustrated or getting to feel annoyed when you just can’t remember the full

lyrics of a song that you really love? Have you ever get tired when you need to search for

some marvellous recipes to be cook for your wedding anniversary? Well, I can tell you that in

the pre-Internet days, finding answer to the questions above would have involved looking

through the reference books, skimming and scanning a newspaper or even making a visit to

the library and however, all with no guarantee of finding that accurate nugget. Now, with the

aid of the Internet, our society is really getting an easier life than how it used to be. For

instance, the Google, the Internet search engine, it can deliver even the most

incomprehensible and vague bits of information to your desktop computer within a matter of

seconds. All you have to do is type in whatever you want to search for and then hit the button

search, and then you may have hundreds to thousands of answer and you may look for the

closest answer to your search.

Now, first of all, according to the Reader’s Digest (2005), the first impact of Internet to our

society would be no one need ever get lost. This is actually one of my favourite usages of the

Internet as I am always so reckless and I have no sense in direction. When you want to go to

somewhere or you want to reach a destination and you are unsure of the route, why worry?

Sites such as streetdirectory.com have transformed car travel for direction-challenged folk.

Whether it is a simple trip from C to D or a complicated route from Z to P, and then from P to

U, it’s easy, you just have to punch in a few details and then it will instantly bring up a door-

to-door list of guidelines complete with a map. Brilliant, isn’t it? Moreover, with the aid of

the Internet, everyone can be a publisher. Internet will be a platform for everyone to publish

their thoughts and their stories in a fun and positive way. For example, try to sign up by using

blogger.com or wordpress.com, you can begin your own journey of writing stories of your

own and getting them published for people all over the world to read your story with just a

click. Moreover, there are so many forums in the Internet, for example, in Malaysia, the most

2 popular forums that have more than 100, 000 members would be the “Lowyat” forum and

also the “Cari” forum. This is another way for the society to be aware of the latest happening

in the country. Not only that, the bank will be on your desktop as well. Banks start to provide

online banking to ease our lives as in this modern era, everyone is very busy building up their

own career and they won’t have the time to go to the bank to queue up and just to fill in a

couple of forms whether to apply for credit cards or to apply for housing loans. Therefore, the

banks have already started their online banking service where with just a few clicks, we are

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able to transfer funds to another bank account or even check our balance through online. It is

a very convenient way to pay bills and print out statements as well. Last but not least, the

Internet actually helps everyone to be an expert in any fields, whether you are not a lawyer,

mechanic, or even a doctor, you can actually look for information in any field that you want,

for instance, when you are sick and you want to seek a doctor’s advice and you cannot put

your full trust on that particular doctor, why not search for some information, starting by

search for the symptoms that you have and then you will be in the win-win situation because

at least you know what is happening to yourself and you can argue with the doctors if you

sense something is not right about the diagnosis.

B) FOUR BENEFITS OF THE INTERNET TO THE STUDENTS AND FOUR

DETRIMENTALEFFECTS OF THE INTERNET ON STUDENTS

One of the benefits of the Internet to the students is Internet actually plays the role as a

platform for the teacher and the students to interact and get in touch after the school hours.

Facebook is a tool for teacher and the students to get along to discuss the topics of the certain

subject. Facebook is where the teacher can just post several questions or even a quiz for the

students to accomplish, they just have to type the answers and hit the button “send” and then

the teacher will be able to view the answers. In term of privacy, the teacher can actually

create a closed group where he or she will only be able to invite students from his or her own

subjects to join in and form a discussion group among themselves. The group will be locked

and outsiders will not be able to enter and disturb the group. Moreover, students can also

submit in their homework or assignment via online. Students can do that by clicking the

option of “message” in the application of Facebook and then attach the documents that they

are done with, and then they can send the documents via message privately. Not only that, if

the students are not keen in using Facebook, they can just do it by signing in the yahoo mail

or Google mail service and send everything to the teachers via e-mail. Indeed, the Internet

has eased the students’ and teachers’ lives.

Another benefit of the Internet is online learning. Students who need to get their work done at

home and if they are having trouble to get to the school library due to lack of transportation

or they live far away from the school itself, can just online and get into the library portal of

the school and then type in the username and password, they can free to log in and look for

journals and articles to read which the links will be provided inside. Moreover, if students

who need to look for certain books and they do not have the time to check in into the library

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can just go into the library portal and search for the items, if the items are available, they may

reserve online or call the library centre to ask the librarians to reserve the books for them.

What an easy way of learning. Besides that, handicapped students have this advantages of

learning at home as they are not convenient in moving around so much, plus according to

Awais (2003), Malaysia is still a developing country and it does not have so many facilities

for the handicapped ones in the school compound and the awareness of assisting the

handicapped is still in a very low rate. Therefore, with online learning through the library

portal or through the school system, for example, the LMS system, it brings benefits for all

kind of students. Not only that, through the LMS system, the lecturers and teachers can just

upload the notes through online and the students can just download them after they log in the

system. The teacher can also raise any questions that he or she would like the students to

participate in, and bonus marks can be given to them through their active participation.

Another benefit of the Internet for students is it creates a bond between the students. Students

in this country can stay connected with students from the other side of the world. Students

can join the chat room or create a forum for students from nationwide to join that particular

forum and they can share information on what they know and they can enquire for things that

they do not understand. For instance, ACCA is actually taken by many students worldwide,

however, they are grouped together in a chat room or a forum to discuss about the pass year

questions, sharing information that different teachers might have given to them while

learning the different lifestyles and cultures between the students. Moreover, Skype is also

available for the students to video call each other and they can interact with each other

visually, the most important point is it is free of charge and it will not give burden to the

students to pay unlike the telephone bills. Internet strengthen the bond of learning as students

from different places get to know each other and they learn from each other, especially in

Malaysia where our English level is still not that sufficient compare to the other countries, but

by using Internet to interact with the others, they have to use this universal language, they

eventually learn from them.

The last benefit of the Internet to the students that I would like to discuss here is the students

can get the latest breaking news through the Internet. In this modern era, students are not

interested in reading the newspapers especially when the newspapers are all in hardcopy and

they might be lazy to get them to read, they would prefer to stay online, playing online

games, chit-chatting with friends, or even busy updating their Twitter. Therefore, through the

use of Internet, the students can eventually read the latest news from the online source, for

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example, in Malaysia, we have thestaronline.com, which the students can go into the website

and they can read all the news that are occurring in Malaysia and some more, all the pictures

are available as well, students will eventually more prefer to read them online, as while they

are doing something, they can take some time to read the news, it’s like hitting two birds with

one stone. Moreover, if they are doing their research on the current issues, they can just click

into the archive of the newspapers section and then get any articles or news that they need to

use to accomplish their assignments. Students usually have longer attention spans with

technology than with other forms of traditional learning.

Now, it is time for me to discuss about the negative effects of the Internet to the students. One

of the detrimental effects of the Internet to the students is cyber bullying. It is unavoidable

that students who are stepping inside the adolescent hood are still immature and they are the

attention seeking type of person. Yes, Facebook is a tool for students and teachers to discuss

about their homework outside the school, yes; Facebook is something that is so useful for the

students especially for discussion and etc. but Facebook is also a tool for the students to take

advantages of and conduct the cyber bullying. Students at the young age will tend to get

jealous of each other and they find cyber bullying the best way to release their anger as it is

hard to detect who is the hacker who does the crime. For instance, in Malaysia, each time we

online, the IP address will be different, therefore if the students do any crimes, it is hard for

anyone to detect who is the person who did it. Cyber bullying should be taken seriously

because it might just take someone’s life because of that. Cyber bullying will cause a

student’s mentality to be hurt and they won’t be able to stand the pressure the other students

laughing or teasing them, so in the end, they would prefer to choose to end their lives, and

who to blame when this occur, of course they would blame in on the Internet as Internet has

given the freedom to the students to do anything that they want beyond the limit.

The second negative effect that I would like to discuss here is students will ultimately go

online and search for pornography videos and pictures. Students are closer with their friends;

that is for sure as they spend more time on schooling rather than with their parents, therefore,

through the negative influence by their friends, they might just be curious and they will start

surfing for things that they should not do or try. I have to say that this act can be addictive

and they might surf for those websites on every single day and sometimes when it becomes a

habit, it is hard to change the behaviour of that person. Moreover, by watching or looking at

those videos or galleries, they might take the action to try it out and experience it in their own

way. This might be dangerous of course as students who are still under age are not supposed

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to try all these and one step of doing the wrong thing might affect the student’s future, for

example, accuse for raping, or just accuse for having sex with their partners. Many effects

will eventually rise from this issue, for example, throwing away the babies as they are afraid

that their parents might find out, raping their own sisters because they cannot control their

desire of wanting to have sex and etc. The students might also try to find hooker online as

well as sometimes when their parents cannot fulfil their needs, they fulfil them through the

bribery of money and they have the cash to call for hookers through online.

Next, the negative effect of the Internet to the students is students might isolate their own

friends and family. We know that the Internet contains unlimited of information and services,

consequently, excessively depend on it too much will cause the students to ignore the social

interactions in the development. This is not to say that the Internet itself is bad, but it just

being misused by the students. Students spend most of their time online, and they spend

lesser and lesser time with their family and their real friends. For instance, students will just

lock themselves in the room while surfing the Internet, if the parents need to ask them to

come out from the room, they might need to as well, call their hand phones or text their hand

phones just to call them out from the room as students can be very ignorant sometimes as

while they are doing something with their friends through online, they will not go and care

what is happening around them. Students will spend less time with their real friends or going

out with their friends, as they prefer to do everything online, they can purchase anything

online and they do not have to go shopping with their friends. Another example: Reuter

reports, "A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop

died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet café."

Students would prefer to meet strangers online and they would likely prefer to chat with them

and to get to know them better as it is like an exploration to them rather than talking to their

friends that they have already known them for decade. They do not know the danger of

talking to strangers, plus not all the strangers can be friendly and some just might be too

dangerous for them.

The last negative effect that I would like to discuss here is information fatigue syndrome.

This might happen to students with advanced level of knowledge. Students love to look for

information through online, however, there is an excess of knowledge available online. As a

consequence, when there is too much information, a student might suffer from this syndrome

as the student will become highly stressed through coping up with the huge amounts of

information. The symptoms of Information Fatigues Syndrome include paralysis of analytical

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capacity, a hyper-aroused psychological disorder and anxiety and self-doubt leading to silly

decisions and defective conclusions.

C) LOGICAL SUGGESTIONS TO REDUCE THE DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF

INTERNET USAGE AMONG STUDENTS

There are several suggestions that I would like to propose here to reduce the detrimental

effects of Internet usage among the students. One of the suggestions is control the children’s

time when they are using the computer. Parents should set and fix a timetable for them to

follow on the time which they can use to surf the Internet so that they will have a systematic

lifestyle and not just sit in front of the desktop and stick their eyes to it. Parents can also

supervise the children if they are younger than 10 years old, sit with them while they online,

guide and help them so that he or she knows how to use the Internet wisely. Moreover,

parents can use pop up blockers to block those offensive materials so that the children will

not have the chance to click or look at the items. Next, the school can maintain a logbook as

well so that they can detect students who have misuse the Internet for negative purposes and

take action upon those students. The school can also regularly check the school computers to

see which cites have been accessed by the students and warn the students that they will check

by time to time so that they will use the Internet for granted. If the students are victims of

cyber bullying, parents and the teachers can continue to keep an open communication channel

with them so that they are able to share their problems with someone that they trust. Last but

not least, parents and teachers should be good role model to them so that they will follow

their footsteps and eliminate those negative points of their own. The school can also try to

educate the students about the online dangers so that they won’t go beyond the limitations.

D) CONCLUSION

In a nutshell, it is undeniable that the Internet has brought a high impact to our lives and it

brings ease and fun to our society where we can get any information with just a click. It

brings so many benefits to us that without the Internet, our life will be so dark just like we

lost a sun in our lives. However, Internet will bring negative effects too especially to students

if they take the usage of Internet for granted. Internet helps the students to get better each day

and to equip them with sufficient knowledge so that they will be able to lead the world one

day as they are the leaders of tomorrow, therefore, the society has to make sure that students

are really making good use of the Internet.

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REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reader's Digest. (2005, February Edition).

Angellucifer. (2009, April). studymode.com. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from What Are

the Negative and Positive Effects of Advance Technologies, Like the Internet, to

Student's Performance?: http://www.studymode.com/essays/What-Are-The-Negative-

And-Positive-200358.html

Awais, B. M. (2003). Impact of Internet Usage on Students' Academic Perfomance (CPGA),

112.

Lui, I. (1997). Internet has many benefits. College of Journalism and Communications, 1.

"Man dies after 50 hours of computer games." Reuters Limited. 2006. 20 Jun 2006.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8888579/

Martin, M. a. (1997). The virtual classroom: the next steps, Educational Technology.

Turner, S. (1999-2012). The Advantages of Internet in Education. Retrieved November 13,

2012, from http://www.ehow.com/facts_5549217_advantages-internet-education.html

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