cause effect (internet influence on kids) essay

Essay on Internet Influence for Kids

When we think of the internet, most of us probably think of websites we visit daily – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube. But the internet is not limited to these, and it has far-reaching consequences for kids. In this essay on internet influence for kids, we will explore how the internet shapes the way kids think and act. Kids today are growing up in a world where the internet plays a massive role in their lives. From helping with homework to finding friends, the internet has become an integral part of their everyday life. However, the internet also has its downsides. Kids today are more likely to develop problems like online addiction due to the constant exposure they get from the internet.

Parents need to be aware of the internet’s effects on their children. By understanding how the internet works and how it affects kids, parents can help keep their children’s online safety and help them develop healthy online habits. While it helps to learn about different cultures and perspectives and can be amazing for fostering creativity and exploration, it can also negatively impact kids. For example, when kids are constantly exposed to harmful content on the internet, it can seriously affect their mental health and development. Additionally, research has shown that children who spend more time online tend to have lower grades in school than their peers who don’t spend as much time online. Now, let us read BYJU’S internet influence on kids essay and understand its pros and cons.

Table of Contents

The pros and cons of online life for kids, how to limit internet exposure for kids.

The essay on internet influence for kids helps them understand the advantages and disadvantages of using the internet. The pros of the internet for kids include learning in a more relaxed environment , accessing information from all over the world, and having fun. On the other hand, there are also some cons of the internet in kids’ lives, such as potential dangers, mental health issues and cyberbullying. Parents need to monitor their children’s online activity to ensure they utilise its benefits and avoid potential dangers.

Suggested Article: Cyber Safety Essay

After learning the pros and cons of the internet for children, let us know how to prevent kids from getting addicted to the internet and engaging themselves in other kids learning activities by reading BYJU’S internet influence on kids essay.

Parents can limit their kids’ internet exposure by using various tools. One way to limit internet time is to set bedtime for kids and establish the rule by turning off the internet when they’re supposed to go to bed. Another way is to set up rules for how much time kids can spend on different websites. For example, parents could limit two hours per day on online gaming and social media use and one hour per day on other websites.

Another way to restrict internet exposure is to have screen-time rules for movies and online shows. Parents can decide on screen time for viewing movies and entertainment shows, and they can set time limits based on age. For example, parents could allow 6-12 years old children to watch one hour of gadgets’ screen time per night, with no more than two hours of screen time per day. Young children (0-5 years old) would be limited to 30 minutes of screen time each day, and 5-8 years old kids would be allowed an hour of screen time each day.

The internet is a potent tool, and kids today are no exception. In this essay on internet influence for kids in English, we have explained the pros and cons of using the internet and ways to limit internet usage for kids. For more kids learning activities, such as stories and poems , visit BYJU’S website.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can parents restrict children’s misuse or overuse of the internet.

Many software tools are available to restrict children’s use of the internet to only child friendly websites. Also, parents can place reasonable restrictions on the time children spend on surfing the internet, watching videos and playing online games.

How to reduce the online influence on kids?

You can reduce the online influence on kids by educating them about the dangers of the internet. Teach them how to use platforms safely and responsibly, and talk to them about the importance of privacy online. Encourage children to get involved in offline activities as well. Playing together, participating in sports, and joining clubs can provide opportunities for social interaction that are healthy for both children and adults alike.

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How social media affects children at different ages – and how to protect them

Associate Professor in Psychology and Lead, Cyberpsychology Research Group, Nottingham Trent University

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A report from the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom confirms children are avid social media users.

Some 99% of children aged three to 17 used the internet in 2021. YouTube was the most popular platform, with 89% of children using it. Meanwhile, half of kids used TikTok, a popular site which allows users to watch and share short videos.

Most social media platforms require users to be aged 13 or older . Nonetheless, the report found that a majority of children under 13 had their own profile on at least one social media app or site. One-third of parents of children aged five to seven said their child had a profile, which rose to 60% among children aged eight to 11.

Overcoming these age restrictions is clearly not a difficult task. Children simply supply a fake age when setting up their account. Meanwhile, some children have multiple accounts on the same platform – one for their friends, and another for their parents.

The report also found that roughly 16% of three and four-year-olds watch videos on TikTok. This could be children being shown videos by a parent or somebody else, and does not mean they have their own account. But they are still being exposed to social media content at a very young age.

With these findings in mind, it’s timely to take a look at what we know about how social media use can affect children across different age groups.

The good and the bad

Engaging with social media can have both positive and negative effects on people, especially children. My colleagues and I have shown that social media use is important for emotional support, community building and self-expression among adolescents, but that it can negatively impact mental health and wellbeing as well.

In our work at the Cyberpsychology Research Group at Nottingham Trent University, we have talked to young adolescents, their parents and teachers about perceived challenges and online harms from social media use.

We found that the effects range from spending increasing amounts of time online, behaviour change due to anticipated judgement from peers, and sensory overload, to more serious cognitive and emotional consequences such as attention problems, stress and anxiety.

Read more: Protecting children in the metaverse: it's easy to blame big tech, but we all have a role to play

New research suggests that there appear to be differences across age groups with regards to the effects social media use can have on life satisfaction. In a large UK sample of over 17,000 young people aged ten to 21, researchers found the detrimental effects of high levels of social media use may be especially pronounced at ages 14-15 and 19 for boys, and 11-13 and 19 for girls.

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed in 2021 that internal Facebook research has repeatedly shown detrimental mental health impacts of Instagram use for young girls.

Separately, we know excessive screen time can be associated with symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression and addiction .

Recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest no screen time for children under two, and a maximum of one hour per day for those aged two to five years, focused on high-quality content (for example, content which is educational).

While we don’t know exactly what kind of content young children are watching on social media, it’s unlikely to be high-quality, and could be harmful.

What can we do?

With the recently published online safety bill , the UK government aims to make the UK the safest place in the world to go online. Accordingly, we need to consider the potentially detrimental impacts internet use in general and excessive social media use specifically can have on young people, especially those who are vulnerable.

We need to see increased user protection (such as age verification measures) and harm prevention initiatives (such as school-based education about the benefits and potential harms of social media use).

We also need to see the involvement of community and government organisations in education and awareness campaigns, as well as a focus on increased corporate social responsibility , where the industry takes an active approach in designing products with the best interests of the user in mind.

Read more: Touchscreens can benefit toddlers – but it’s worth choosing your child’s apps wisely

While we discourage over-pathologising everyday behaviour – for example, we shouldn’t assume everyone who spends a few hours online has a problem with their internet use – problematic behaviour needs to be acknowledged and users need to be supported. This can prevent it leading to negative mental health consequences.

Support for young internet users needs to come from parents, teachers, governments and the social media industry. Parents can be encouraged to start an open dialogue with their children, which will build rapport and allow children to open up about their social media use.

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Write an essay on "Internet Influence on Kids" Children and the Internet Think about how much time your children spend on electronics and what it could be doing to their health and intelligence. Instead of reading books and learning from experiences they're glued to a screen that's leaving them unable to react In real life. "Hands on experiences are vital to the developing of conversation and cause-effect relationships" (Negative effects of Internet usage on Child Development). Internet Influence on kids is becoming a problem with prolonged exposure to technology ending In Physical, Cognitive and Social Implantation.It Is Important to realize that a child's body is Just beginning to develop and that a sedentary lifestyle can lead to obesity and health issues.

"Computer use can cause carpal tunnel and eye strain. " (Physical and Social Effects of Internet Use in Children). Leaving children with health Issues alone on the computer is even worse and unexpected opus can cause a lot of problems. "It can also cause seizures if there are rapidly flashing games ND websites" ().There are so many ways children can get aloud of the internet: computers, smoothness, pads, pods, gaming consoles, etc.

It's leaving them feeling instantly gratified and entitled to things that arena theirs that causes lots of trouble as they get older. In addition to physical effects there are cognitive ones as well. "Easy access to internet may become less able to separate fact from fiction. Internet has no filter and no peer review so anyone can publish what they want.Informal communication moon to chat rooms Is a worry and can carry over to their academics" (Physical and social effects of Internet use In children).

The multitasking that many children engage in while online reduces attention span, making intense concentration on a single task more difficult. "Rapid nature of internet stimulation alters the way children see the world, and it creates boredom. " (Physical and Social effects of Internet use In children). Information posted on the Internet Is lawless.

Young children depend on adults to validate what they see, hear and feel.The information on the Internet is uncontrolled and there is no way to check its reliability, and further, often no practical way to ensure reparability. "Increased use among children may result In feelings of loneliness and depression" (Physical and Social effects of Internet use in children). "Also results in less time spent with family and friends or working on hobbies" (Physical and Social effects of Internet use in children). Another key point refers to the social side of the effects of the internet.

"ViolentImages, foul language and a lack of social rules common to the internet don't help a child succeed in the real world" (Physical and Social effects of Internet use in children). "Instead of hanging out with friends they show a trend that a computer is more important" (The influence of the Internet on our younger generation). "Causes desensitizing to violence. Both violent and pornographic Imagery can fundamentally alter a developing child's perspective of the world" (Negative effects of Internet usage on child development).

Societys evil and productive Internet connection! The Internet can connect people to…

Bits and pieces of steel that perform routine chores, food readily edible…

Internet Addiction It is a network of networks that consists of millions…

Computer Is harmful to children Following the 21 stb century technological advancement…

And today every family In America virtually owns a computer set. So…

Many people still do not believe that violent video games could influence…

Research suggests that children are exerting more influence over family buying decisions….

In the United States today, 99 percent of allhomes haveat least one…

Nowadays, in the world in which we live, violence is reported everywhere….

Background of the study Now that the Internet is increasingly within everyone’s…

Research April 5, 2010 The internet and television play a major role…

Compare to the new generation children, back in the old days, children…

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Internet Influence on Kids Essay – Essay on Internet Influence on Kids

April 11, 2020 by Study Mentor 2 Comments

The reach of the internet is indeed worldwide. It spans across all countries, all communities and obviously, all age groups. Therefore, even kids, for being especially susceptible to external influences, easily fall prey to the influence of the internet.

As is applicable to most other such phenomenon, it comes with both its advantages and disadvantages. However, if one has to carefully weigh these two sides, it is clearly evident that in this case, the negative effects on internet influence outweigh its positive effects.

The adverse consequences include social, physical, emotional and psychological consequences, and therefore, internet influence can turn out to be a very harmful influence for kids if it is not channelized and supervised in a proper way.

Table of Contents

The main cause due to which internet influence on kids is so widespread and commonplace is because the apparent accuracy of the internet as a source of information, and also the wide variety and volume of information it can possibly provide one with.

Therefore, the same problems which used to befuddle kids before they had access to use internet do not have the same effect on them any longer. Also, the question of parental influence might also arise here.

Erstwhile, the problems with which the kids used to approach their parents to find the solution can now be easily solved just with a few clicks on a computer (or smartphone, to make things even easier).

Another factor is that internet opens many doors for the kids which they could not have possibly done on their own, for example: the social media.

Therefore, internet gives the kids a false sense of freedom, which can easily get into someone’s head and make them almost addicted to the internet. Another reason why the internet can easily influence kids is its utmost convenience.

Getting accustomed to and the further using the internet is really easy and can be done without any proper or previous guidance and therefore it also gives kids a sense of self competence, which further strengthens the influence on them.

Positive effects of internet influence

The main positive effect or advantage of internet influence on kids is their enhancement of knowledge through browsing the internet, as there are various websites scattered all over this virtual form of library which can supply kids with many sources to quench their curiosity if there is a certain degree of supervision over what sort of websites the kids are having access to.

Another positive effect is the fact that kids can now use social media as a genuine platform to showcase all their talents, through websites like YouTube, etc.

Social networking is another advantage of the internet, but a careful balance needs to be maintained which would ensure that kids only use social media to their benefit, for example: for a healthy exchange of ideas and opinions.

Also, there are many online games and other activities that can work towards enhancing the kids’ hand-eye coordination, teamwork, and creative skills. It also, in turn, contributes to the development of one’s visual and social intelligence.

Moreover, in one survey conducted, it has been proven that kids who regularly use the internet thrive in academics as compared to their peers who do not have any similar access.

Also, through the internet, kids can nurture various new ideas which would open their minds to completely new possibilities and improve their imagination.

Furthermore, through the internet, kids can lay their hands on various archives of books, magazines, television shows, and movies which are not available for them otherwise. Through this, indirectly, the knowledge base of the kids is further expanded.

Health hazards

Spending too much time in front of the computer screens pose serious threats to the lives of kids engaged in the same. This way, their lifestyles become essentially a sedentary one and their movements are minimized to the level of serious inactivity.

This can cause problems to one’s bones, muscles, and joints as they do not undergo a considerable amount of physical activity and movement this way and therefore their purpose is fulfilled to the optimum level. One’s cognitive development can also be greatly stunned by an overdose of internet addiction.

Too much of computer use can also cause a considerable amount of strain to one’s eyesight. Exposure to media violence can also hamper one’s emotional well being to a great extent, which is one of the chief health hazards caused due to excessive internet influence on kids.

Spending a longer time playing video games can also cause pain to one’s carpal tunnel and certain other parts of their body due to overuse beyond one’s normal threshold of physical tolerance.

Most importantly, a sedentary lifestyle like that has been mentioned here can be a major cause to weight problems, eventually leading to obesity, and it is needless to say how harmful obesity is in a young and delicate age.

Other negative influences

The internet has been used as a medium of cyber violence or bullying. We have seen countless movies and TV shows where the internet has effectively been used to harm or injure other people by hampering with their mental and psychological well-being this is what bullying actually leads to.

The recent blue whale game which became infamous due to the fatal influence it was having on kids all throughout the world is yet another alarming consequence of what excessive exposure to the darker side of the internet can do to kids.

As kids are impressionable and vulnerable to many kinds of influences, they are also easily targeted by people who want to adversely affect others, as has been the case of this game. Therefore, suicide rates can also rise through excessive internet influence.

Also, through social media especially, kids start comparing themselves and their lives to others, and when they see themselves as an inferior through this process of social comparison, they might succumb into loneliness, self-loathing, and even frustration and depression.

This shows that an unchecked exposure to the internet can harm the kids’ mental health as well.

No good thing remains good in an unchecked excess. The same can be said for the internet as well. No matter how big a boon it might be for the entire mankind, we cannot deny the harms it has caused and will continue to cause to the mankind as well. But we cannot blame the internet completely.

It is proven that a cautious approach to the utilization of the services the internet has to offer can easily keep a lot of potential harms at bay.

Therefore, if the internet is handled with caution, and if the kids are properly taught what to use and how exactly to use it, the internet might as well stop being a source of any kind of negative influence on the kids of today’s generation.

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Cause and Effect of Internet Influence on Kids (Children) Essay Example

• Pages: 2 (518 words)
• Published: January 14, 2018
• Type: Essay

Write an essay on "Internet Influence on Kids"

Children and the Internet Think about how much time your children spend on electronics and what it could be doing to their health and intelligence. Instead of reading books and learning from experiences they're glued to a screen that's leaving them unable to react In real life. "Hands on experiences are vital to the developing of conversation and cause-effect relationships" (Negative effects of Internet usage on Child Development). Internet Influence on kids is becoming a problem with prolonged exposure to technology ending In Physical, Cognitive and Social Implantation.

It Is Important to realize that a child's body is Just beginning to develop and that a sedentary lifestyle can lead to obesity and health issues. "Computer use can cause carpal tunnel and eye

strain. " (Physical and Social Effects of Internet Use in Children). Leaving children with health Issues alone on the computer is even worse and unexpected opus can cause a lot of problems. "It can also cause seizures if there are rapidly flashing games ND websites" ().

There are so many ways children can get aloud of the internet: computers, smoothness, pads, pods, gaming consoles, etc. It's leaving them feeling instantly gratified and entitled to things that arena theirs that causes lots of trouble as they get older. In addition to physical effects there are cognitive ones as well. "Easy access to internet may become less able to separate fact from fiction. Internet has no filter and no peer review so anyone can publish what they want.

Informal communication moon to chat rooms Is a worry and can carry over to their academics" (Physical and

social effects of Internet use In children). The multitasking that many children engage in while online reduces attention span, making intense concentration on a single task more difficult. "Rapid nature of internet stimulation alters the way children see the world, and it creates boredom. " (Physical and Social effects of Internet use In children). Information posted on the Internet Is lawless. Young children depend on adults to validate what they see, hear and feel.

The information on the Internet is uncontrolled and there is no way to check its reliability, and further, often no practical way to ensure reparability. "Increased use among children may result In feelings of loneliness and depression" (Physical and Social effects of Internet use in children). "Also results in less time spent with family and friends or working on hobbies" (Physical and Social effects of Internet use in children). Another key point refers to the social side of the effects of the internet. "Violent

Images, foul language and a lack of social rules common to the internet don't help a child succeed in the real world" (Physical and Social effects of Internet use in children). "Instead of hanging out with friends they show a trend that a computer is more important" (The influence of the Internet on our younger generation). "Causes desensitizing to violence. Both violent and pornographic Imagery can fundamentally alter a developing child's perspective of the world" (Negative effects of Internet usage on child development).

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Office of the Surgeon General (OSG). Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory [Internet]. Washington (DC): US Department of Health and Human Services; 2023.

Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory [Internet].

Social media has both positive and negative impacts on children and adolescents.

The influence of social media on youth mental health is shaped by many complex factors, including, but not limited to, the amount of time children and adolescents spend on platforms, the type of content they consume or are otherwise exposed to, the activities and interactions social media affords, and the degree to which it disrupts activities that are essential for health like sleep and physical activity. 6 Importantly, different children and adolescents are affected by social media in different ways, based on their individual strengths and vulnerabilities, and based on cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors. 7 , 8 There is broad agreement among the scientific community that social media has the potential to both benefit and harm children and adolescents. 6 , 9

Brain development is a critical factor to consider when assessing the risk for harm. Adolescents, ages 10 to 19, are undergoing a highly sensitive period of brain development. 10 , 11 This is a period when risk-taking behaviors reach their peak, when well-being experiences the greatest fluctuations, and when mental health challenges such as depression typically emerge. 12 , 13 , 14 Furthermore, in early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are forming, brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions, and peer comparison. 11 , 13 Frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain in the amygdala (important for emotional learning and behavior) and the prefrontal cortex (important for impulse control, emotional regulation, and moderating social behavior), and could increase sensitivity to social rewards and punishments. 15 , 16 As such, adolescents may experience heightened emotional sensitivity to the communicative and interactive nature of social media. 16 Adolescent social media use is predictive of a subsequent decrease in life satisfaction for certain developmental stages including for girls 11–13 years old and boys 14–15 years old. 17 Because adolescence is a vulnerable period of brain development, social media exposure during this period warrants additional scrutiny.

• The Potential Benefits of Social Media Use Among Children and Adolescents

Social media can provide benefits for some youth by providing positive community and connection with others who share identities, abilities, and interests. It can provide access to important information and create a space for self-expression. 9 The ability to form and maintain friendships online and develop social connections are among the positive effects of social media use for youth. 18 , 19 These relationships can afford opportunities to have positive interactions with more diverse peer groups than are available to them offline and can provide important social support to youth. 18 The buffering effects against stress that online social support from peers may provide can be especially important for youth who are often marginalized, including racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minorities. 20 , 21 , 22 For example, studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support. 23 Seven out of ten adolescent girls of color report encountering positive or identity-affirming content related to race across social media platforms. 24 A majority of adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%). 25 In addition, research suggests that social media-based and other digitally-based mental health interventions may also be helpful for some children and adolescents by promoting help-seeking behaviors and serving as a gateway to initiating mental health care. 8 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29

• The Potential Harms of Social Media Use Among Children and Adolescents

Over the last decade, evidence has emerged identifying reasons for concern about the potential negative impact of social media on children and adolescents.

A longitudinal cohort study of U.S. adolescents aged 12–15 (n=6,595) that adjusted for baseline mental health status found that adolescents who spent more than 3 hours per day on social media faced double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes including symptoms of depression and anxiety. 30

As of 2021, 8th and 10th graders now spend an average of 3.5 hours per day on social media. 31 In a unique natural experiment that leveraged the staggered introduction of a social media platform across U.S. colleges, the roll-out of the platform was associated with an increase in depression (9% over baseline) and anxiety (12% over baseline) among college-aged youth (n = 359,827 observations). 32 The study’s co-author also noted that when applied across the entirety of the U.S. college population, the introduction of the social media platform may have contributed to more than 300,000 new cases of depression. 32 , 33 If such sizable effects occurred in college-aged youth, these findings raise serious concerns about the risk of harm from social media exposure for children and adolescents who are at a more vulnerable stage of brain development.

Limits on the use of social media have resulted in mental health benefits for young adults and adults. A small, randomized controlled trial in college-aged youth found that limiting social media use to 30 minutes daily over three weeks led to significant improvements in depression severity. 34 This effect was particularly large for those with high baseline levels of depression who saw an improvement in depression scores by more than 35%. 35 Another randomized controlled trial among young adults and adults found that deactivation of a social media platform for four weeks improved subjective well-being (i.e., self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety) by about 25–40% of the effect of psychological interventions like self-help therapy, group training, and individual therapy. 36

In addition to these recent studies, correlational research on associations between social media use and mental health has indicated reason for concern and further investigation. These studies point to a higher relative concern of harm in adolescent girls and those already experiencing poor mental health, 37 , 38 , 39 as well as for particular health outcomes like cyberbullying-related depression, 40 body image and disordered eating behaviors, 41 and poor sleep quality linked to social media use. 42 For example, a study conducted among 14-year-olds (n = 10,904) found that greater social media use predicted poor sleep, online harassment, poor body image, low self-esteem, and higher depressive symptom scores with a larger association for girls than boys. 43 A majority of parents of adolescents say they are somewhat, very, or extremely worried that their child’s use of social media could lead to problems with anxiety or depression (53%), lower self-esteem (54%), being harassed or bullied by others (54%), feeling pressured to act a certain way (59%), and exposure to explicit content (71%). 44

Unless otherwise noted in the text, all material appearing in this work is in the public domain and may be reproduced without permission. Citation of the source is appreciated.

• Cite this Page Office of the Surgeon General (OSG). Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory [Internet]. Washington (DC): US Department of Health and Human Services; 2023. Social Media Has Both Positive and Negative Impacts on Children and Adolescents.
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Understanding How Digital Media Affects Child Development

Technology and digital media have become ubiquitous parts of our daily lives. Screen time among children and adolescents was high before COVID-19 emerged, and it has further risen during the pandemic, thanks in part to the lack of in-person interactions.  

In this increasingly digital world, we must strive to better understand how technology and media affect development, health outcomes, and interpersonal relationships. In fact, the fiscal year 2023 federal budget sets aside no less than $15 million within NICHD’s appropriation to investigate the effects of technology use and media consumption on infant, child, and adolescent development.

Parents may not closely oversee their children’s media use, especially as children gain independence. However, many scientific studies of child and adolescent media use have relied on parents’ recollections of how much time the children spent in front of a screen. By using software embedded within mobile devices to calculate children’s actual use, NICHD-supported researchers found that parent reports were inaccurate more often than they were on target. A little more than one-third of parents in the study underestimated their children’s usage, and nearly the same proportion overestimated it. With a recent grant award from NICHD, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine plan to overcome the limitation of relying on parental reports by using a novel technology to objectively monitor preschool-age children’s digital media use. They ultimately aim to identify the short- and long-term influences of technology and digital media use on children’s executive functioning, sleep patterns, and weight. This is one of three multi-project program grants awarded in response to NICHD’s recent funding opportunity announcement inviting proposals to examine how digital media exposure and use impact developmental trajectories and health outcomes in early childhood or adolescence. Another grant supports research to characterize the context, content, and use of digital media among children ages 1 to 8 years and to examine associations with the development of emotional regulation and social competence. A third research program seeks to better characterize the complex relationships between social media content, behaviors, brain activity, health, and well-being during adolescence.

I look forward to the findings from these ongoing projects and other studies that promise to inform guidance for technology and media use among children and adolescents. Additionally, the set-aside funding for the current fiscal year will allow us to further expand research in this area. These efforts will help us advance toward our aspirational goal to discover how technology exposure and media use affect developmental trajectories, health outcomes, and parent-child interactions.

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Essay on Cause and Effect of How the Internet Influences Young Children

The Internet is one of the most important modern facilities in todays world that everyone including the children should have access to. This is mainly based on the fact that the internet is able to provide the children with unlimited information and resources. According to research, more than two-thirds of the young children aged eight years and above use the internet on a daily basis. The use of the internet for education purposes by the children has been a complete game changer since it has been a cheap and easy way to gain access to information as compared to the earlier days when there was no internet. However, the use of the internet by the children has had varied causes as well as effect to the young children. Most of this causes and effects have been claimed to be both positive and negative, but the negative effects have lately seemed to more than the positive. There are several negative effects have been linked to the use of the internet by young children.

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Physical health

The consistent and prolonged day to day use of the internet by the young children has deprived them their enough time to play and also engage in other physical activities. This kind of lifestyle by the young children has limited them to physical activities like playing, and this has exposed them to chronic ailments like obesity. Research by Health specialists has also indicated that the repetitive use of computers by the children can cause eye strain and blurred eye vision because of the high image motions from the computers screens. Health research has also shown that some websites with high flashing effects can cause epileptic seizures to the young children.

Brain development

The use of the internet by young children has been said to affect the childs brain development since all the information they get readily available, and this may make them not differentiate between facts and also reality. This is based on the fact that children are not engaging themselves to the real life scenario of their study case. An example of this is online gaming which only exposes them to a virtual reality world as compared to real life games which expose them to the real life world from which they can learn plenty of accurate and real things.

Social isolation and moral corruption

The continued use and interaction of internet by the children simulates the world that separates them from the real world. This affects the childrens social life because they dont get to interact with other peers. This kind of social world simulation is mainly found on social media platforms where they interact with peers through applications like Facebook. The internet has also played a huge negative impact in corrupting the morals of young children because it has no age limit and it exposes them to a lot of explicit content like pornography and violence.

Positive impacts

The internet has also played a huge positive impact on the young children. Is has provisioned the young children with a variety of information and also plenty of academic resources to the students which has boosted their knowledge at a young age. Some of the online social activities like gaming have helped to boost teamwork and high creativity to the young children, and this has hugely helped them in solving complex issues in real life still at a young age. The internet also exposes the young children to a global world helping them to acquire plenty of knowledge and skills from different places around the world and applying the learned things in their day to day life.

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• Parenting Children in the Age of Screens
• 1. Children’s engagement with digital devices, screen time

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• 2. Parental views about YouTube
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The use of the internet and the adoption of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets is widespread, and digital technologies play a significant role in the everyday lives of American families. This is also true for children, who may begin interacting with digital devices at young ages.

In March, Pew Research Center asked parents a series of questions about their children under the age of 12 and how they engage with digital technologies.

The most common device parents say their young child engages with is a television, with 88% of parents saying their child ever uses or interacts with a TV. Smaller – yet still large – shares of parents say their child ever uses or interacts with a tablet computer (67%) or a smartphone (60%). Some 44% of parents of young children say their child ever uses or interacts with a desktop or laptop computer or a gaming device.

There are substantial age differences in the types of devices parents report their child engaging with. For example, 73% of parents with a child age 9 to 11 say their child uses a desktop or laptop computer, compared with 54% of those whose child is age 5 to 8 and just 16% of those with a child younger than 5. The use of gaming devices follows a similar pattern: 68% of parents with a child age 9 to 11 say their child uses this device, compared with 58% of those with a child age 5 to 8, one-quarter of those whose child is age 3 to 4 and 9% of those with a child age 2 or younger. Similarly, 80% of parents with a child age 5 to 11 say their child uses or interacts with a tablet computer, compared with 64% of parents with a child age 3 to 4 who do this and 35% with a child or a child age 2 or younger.

These differences by the child’s age are less pronounced when other devices are considered. For instance, parents with a child age 9 to 11 are more likely to say their child engages with a smartphone (67%), compared with parents with a child age 5 to 8 (59%) or age 2 or younger (49%). Parents with a child age 3 to 4 fall in the middle – 62% say their child uses or interacts with a smartphone.

Parents of the youngest children are less likely to say their child engages with a television, but majorities of all age groups still report doing so – 74% of parents with a child age 2 or younger say their child uses or interacts with a television, compared with 90% or more of parents with a child in somewhat older age groups.

More than one-third of parents with a child under 12 say their child began interacting with a smartphone before the age of 5

Among the 60% of parents who say their child younger than 12 ever uses or interacts with a smartphone, six-in-ten say their child began engaging with a smartphone before the age of 5, including roughly one-third (31%) who say their child began this before age 2 and 29% who say it started between ages 3 and 4. Some 26% of parents whose child uses a smartphone say the smartphone engagement began between the ages 5 and 8. This share falls to just 14% for parents with a child age 9 to 11. 5

Nearly one-in-five parents of a child younger than 12 say their child has their own smartphone

Aside from just using and engaging with a smartphone, some children younger than 12 years old have their own device. Nearly one-in-five parents of a child 11 or younger (17%) say that their child has their own smartphone.

There are differences in child smartphone ownership by parents’ education level and the age of the child. Parents with a high school education or less are twice as likely as parents who are college graduates to say their child has their own smartphone (21% vs. 11%). Parents with some college education fall in the middle, with 19% saying their child under the age of 12 has their own smartphone.

Parents with somewhat older children are also more likely to say their child has their own device. For example, 37% of parents of a child age 9 to 11 say their child has their own smartphone, compared with 13% of those with a child 5 to 8, 5% of those with a child 3 to 4 and 3% of those with a child who is 2 or younger.

Among the share of parents who say their child under age 12 has their own smartphone (17%), roughly half (51%) say this child was between the ages of 9 and 11 when they got their own device, and about one-third of parents (35%) say this happened between ages 5 and 8. Much smaller shares of these parents say the same for younger ages.

Majorities of parents of children who have their own smartphones and are under the age of 12 say making it easy for their child to contact them (78%) and being able to easily get in touch with their child (73%) are major reasons their child has their own smartphone.

Far fewer parents with a child in this age range say that major reasons their child has their own smartphone are to have something to keep them entertained (25%) or because their friends or classmates have a phone (6%). About one-in-ten parents of a child ages 5 to 11 (9%) say that a major reason this child has their own smartphone is to do their homework.

More than a third of parents say their child under the age of 12 uses or interacts with a voice-activated assistant

In addition to details about smartphone engagement and ownership, parents of children under 12 were also asked some questions about their child’s engagement with voice-activated assistants.

Roughly one-third of parents of a child age 11 or younger (36%) say their child ever uses or interacts with a voice-activated assistant such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon Alexa. There are differences in a child’s interaction with this type of device by age of the child, race or ethnicity, parent’s level of educational attainment and community type.

Parents who have an older child, between the ages of 5 and 11, are more likely than parents with a child age 3 to 4 or age 2 or younger to say their child uses or interacts with a voice-activated assistant.

Among parents with a child under age 12, those with lower levels of formal education are less likely to say their child engages with a voice-activated assistant – 26% of parents with a high school education or less say their child does this, compared with 38% of parents who have some college education and 42% of college graduates.

White parents are more likely than Hispanic parents to say their child ever interacts with or uses a voice-activated assistant. Those living in suburban locations are also more likely than those living in rural communities to say their child does this.

Among the 36% of parents of a child under the age of 12 who say their child ever uses or interacts with a voice-activated assistant, majorities say their child uses this device to play music (82%) or get information (66%). Smaller shares of these parents say their child uses a voice-activated assistant to hear jokes (47%) or play games (30%).

The use of a voice-activated assistant varies substantially by the age of the child for all but one of these activities – with older children being more likely to use these functions. Fully 78% of parents with a child age 5 to 11 say their child uses a voice-activated assistant to get information, compared with 29% of parents with a child age 4 or younger who say the same.

When it comes to using the voice-activated assistant to hear jokes, more than half of parents (54%) with a 5- to 11-year-old child say their child uses a voice-activated assistant to do this, compared with roughly one-quarter of parents (24%) with a younger child, 4 or younger, who say the same. And more than twice as many parents with a child age 5 to 11 say their child uses a voice-activated assistant to play games compared with parents with a child age 4 or younger (34% vs. 16%). There is no difference by age of child when it comes to parents saying their child uses a voice-activated assistant to play music.

Some parents of a child under 12 are concerned about the data collected by these voice-activated assistants. Among parents of children under age 12 who say their child ever uses or interacts with a voice-activated assistant, about four-in-ten (39%) say they are at least somewhat concerned about the data these assistants collect about their child, including 11% who say they are very concerned. But a majority of parents say they are not too (47%) or not at all (14%) concerned about the data voice-activated assistants collect about their child.

A portion of parents say their child younger than 12 uses social media; use varies by age of child, parents’ level of education

Relatively few parents of a child age 11 or younger say that, as far as they know, their child uses social media, though shares are higher for parents of children ages 9 to 11. Despite most social media sites having age guidelines in place, which usually restrict children younger than 13 from joining, some 13% of these parents say their child uses TikTok and 10% say their child uses Snapchat. Just 5% say their child uses Instagram, and even fewer (3%) say their child uses Facebook. Some 7% of parents say their child uses some other social media site. There are differences in child social media use by age of the child and parents’ level of educational attainment.

Parents with a child age 9 to 11 are more likely than parents with a child in younger age groups to say their child uses any of the social media platforms asked about in the survey. For example, three-in-ten parents of a child age 9 to 11 say their child uses TikTok, compared with 11% of parents of a child between the ages of 5 and 8 and 3% of parents of children ages 4 and younger.

Parental education level is also a factor in their child’s use of certain social media sites. For example, parents of a child age 11 or younger with a high school education or less are more likely than those with a postgraduate degree to say their child uses TikTok (19% vs. 6%). This trend also holds for a child’s use of Snapchat and Facebook.

Parents are more likely to say their child under age 12 uses a social media site if this child has their own smartphone. For instance, 42% of parents who say their child has their own smartphone also say their child uses TikTok, and 31% say their child uses Snapchat. These shares fall to 10% or less across all platforms for parents who say their child does not have their own smartphone.

CORRECTION (Aug. 5, 2020): An earlier version of this report included a chart with a headline that read “Roughly half of parents say their child got their own smartphone between the ages of 9 and 11.” This headline has been edited for accuracy to explain that this was only among those whose child had their own smartphone. The chart, now titled “51% of parents whose young child has their own smartphone say this child got the device between the ages of 9 and 11,” was also edited so that all figures displayed in the bar chart are scaled correctly.

• When all parents with a child under the age of 12 are considered, 35% say their child began engaging with a smartphone before the age of 5, 15% say this happened between the ages of 5 and 8, and 8% say their child began engaging with this device between the ages of 9 and 11. ↩

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Essay on Internet Influence on Kids

Students are often asked to write an essay on Internet Influence on Kids in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Internet Influence on Kids

The internet’s impact on kids.

The internet has a significant effect on kids. It provides a vast amount of information, helping kids with their studies. However, it also has a downside.

Positive Influence

The internet is an educational tool. Kids can find information on any topic, helping them with schoolwork and broadening their knowledge.

Negative Influence

Unfortunately, the internet also has harmful content. Kids might encounter violent or inappropriate material. Also, excessive internet use can lead to addiction.

The internet can be both beneficial and harmful. Kids need guidance to use it responsibly.

250 Words Essay on Internet Influence on Kids

Introduction.

The Internet, a vast global network, has a profound influence on children’s lives. It has revolutionized communication, education, and entertainment, but its impact on kids is a double-edged sword.

Internet as an Educational Tool

The Internet is an incredible educational tool. It provides children with access to a wealth of knowledge, from online textbooks to educational videos. It facilitates virtual classrooms, enabling learning even in remote areas. However, the quality of information varies, and children may struggle to distinguish reliable sources from misleading ones.

Internet and Socialization

The Internet has transformed socialization. Kids can connect with peers worldwide, fostering global awareness and cultural understanding. Yet, this virtual socialization can lead to decreased face-to-face interactions, potentially impacting their social skills development.

Internet and Entertainment

The Internet is a hub of entertainment, providing endless games, movies, and music. It can stimulate creativity and cater to diverse interests. Conversely, excessive screen time may lead to sedentary lifestyles and associated health issues.

Internet Safety Concerns

The Internet presents safety concerns, such as cyberbullying and exposure to inappropriate content. It’s crucial for parents and educators to monitor internet usage and teach children about safe online practices.

The Internet’s influence on kids is multifaceted, offering immense opportunities and posing significant challenges. It’s a powerful tool that, when used responsibly, can enrich children’s lives. But it’s essential to balance its benefits with potential risks, promoting safe and healthy internet use.

500 Words Essay on Internet Influence on Kids

The advent of the internet era.

The Internet has revolutionized the way we live, work, and play, becoming an integral part of our lives. Its influence is particularly pronounced among children, who have grown up in the digital age and are often more adept at navigating the online world than their parents. The Internet’s influence on kids is a multifaceted issue, with both positive and negative implications.

Internet as a Learning Tool

The Internet is an unparalleled learning tool, providing children with access to a wealth of knowledge. Educational websites, online courses, and interactive learning platforms offer opportunities to learn and grow outside the traditional classroom setting. It allows children to pursue their interests, learn at their own pace, and broaden their horizons. The Internet also fosters global connectivity, enabling children to interact with diverse cultures and perspectives.

The Dark Side of the Internet

However, the Internet’s influence on kids isn’t wholly positive. Exposure to inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and online predators are serious concerns. Furthermore, excessive screen time can lead to physical health issues, such as obesity and vision problems, and mental health issues, like anxiety and depression. The Internet can also impact children’s social skills, as virtual interactions replace face-to-face communication.

The Role of Parents and Educators

Parents and educators play a crucial role in mitigating the negative effects of the Internet. They need to educate children about online safety, monitor their online activities, and set boundaries for screen time. Schools should incorporate digital literacy into their curriculum, teaching students how to critically evaluate online information and use the Internet responsibly.

The Double-Edged Sword

In conclusion, the Internet’s influence on kids is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it offers unprecedented learning opportunities and global connectivity. On the other, it exposes children to potential dangers and health issues. Navigating this digital landscape requires a balanced approach, leveraging the Internet’s benefits while minimizing its risks. The key lies in education and supervision, equipping children with the skills and knowledge to use the Internet safely and responsibly. As we move further into the digital age, understanding the Internet’s influence on kids and how to manage it effectively will become increasingly important.

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The Effects of Internet on Children

Updated 22 September 2021

Subject Identity

Downloads 51

Category Information Science and Technology ,  Sociology

Topic Children ,  Internet ,  Modern Society

The Effects of Internet Usage on Children

The Internet is a platform that most people in modern society use to perform a variety of tasks. It has recently become one of the most popular networks among children. Some people use it to be more positive, and others use it to be totally harmful. As a result, increased internet usage has both positive and negative effects on children's social, physical, psychological, academic, and moral growth.

Social Effects

Socially, the internet makes it easier to communicate with friends and people who live far away. In addition, the child frequently exchanges knowledge with their peers through the internet, thus increasing communication. Nonetheless, the internet limits children's physical interaction with others because some children may prefer to spend more time on the internet than going out and meeting friends. Excessive internet usage makes the kids with less or no time for exercise and sports activities which might adversely affect their physical health. They may develop health effects like poor muscular development and obesity. Kids who suffer from this conditions may end up making their parents spend a lot of money on their treatment and or therapies. Nevertheless, limited internet usage contributes to a healthy expansion of eye-hand coordination.

Psychological Effects

Psychologically, kids can get primarily affected with continued internet usage. They may feel lonely and isolated since they only interact with a machine that cannot verbally talk. Conversely, this decreases with time as kids effectively learn to use the technology. Sometimes addiction to the internet can lead to psychological disorder in kids thus developing strange behaviors like neglecting of social bonds and dishonesty vices. A kid may, for example, lie about the information on the internet as educative yet this might not be correct.

Academic Effects

Academically, the internet assists the kids in exploring a lot of information that may not be available in their textbooks or other education materials. They also enjoy the profound digital knowledge and make references to various collections like audios and images. With such information, academic work like sharing assignments and research get enhanced though it might be challenging to others. The reason for this is because, at a tender age, kids have not developed the capacity to manipulate the information they find online.

Moral Effects

The internet degrades moral values of many kids. With exposure to all kinds of information on internet, children get to learn how harmful drugs, for instance, bhang are used. They also get to interact with victims of the same who comment negatively on social media sites encouraging substances abuse. Out of curiosity, kids practice this slowly becoming less useful in the future. Again kids are exposed to pornographic materials thus corrupting their tender minds.

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Conclusively, with the consideration that the effects of internet usage can be both negative and positive to kids, there is a necessity for its transformation. This can be effected by ensuring that internet security is put in place to block kids from accessing information that will negatively impact them. If this gets adhered to, the internet should then be made available to all kids since it will help in personal growth and development.

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Sample Essay on Internet Influence on Kids

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Cause and Effect Essay

• Title: Internet Influence on Kids
• Hook: Did you know: More than seven million kids below 13 years are Facebook users? More than 50 percent of kids by the age of interact with either tablets or smartphones on a regular basis? Yes, these statistics are true as attested to by Clinton and Steyer of CNN in their article on “Is the Internet hurting children?” Recent technologies, especially in ICT, have seen an explosive growth and usage leading to various impact on the lives of kids both at home and school (Clinton & P. Steyer, 2012).
• A brief description of the topic : The internet has been one of the most resourceful technology platforms in the current generation, but it has impacted kids in a variety of ways. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become key tools that have reshaped communications not only among adults but also kids. According to Partick (2015), the use of Internet among young people has been on the increase in past two decades such that now over 60 percent of kids aged eight years visit internet sites every day or regularly. In regard to this, the side effects of internet use on children have been a key area of research among scholars in the recent past.
• Thesis statement: A) This essay explores the key influences of the internet on Kids.
• B) Further, suggestions for future actions are given so as to eliminate the possible negative impacts of internet usage.
• Topic Sentence: A key element that has been identified with internet use among kids is their cognitive development.
• Reason 1: This is a psychological influence whereby regular internet use may become unable to separate between facts and fiction. This is because exposure to hypertext and multi-media content on the internet has been associated with reduced attention span, reduced ability to comprehend issues, limited focus, increased risk for depression, and reduced long-term memory among the kids. There is a possible worrying trend that kids in learning institutions are likely to take the informal communication and information they learn from the internet to formal educational settings. There is a potential challenge of plagiarism concerning homework tasks that are given to these kids so as they keep studying while away from school. Kids are likely to copy answers directly from the internet sources in order to complete their assignments or homework tests hence a negative impact on their education (Patrick, 2015).
• Example 1: The psychological impact may not only impact education but may also impact the social behavior of the kids. They may tend to isolate themselves from others especially parents as they dedicate more time to internet activities. But then, there could be the positive part of cognitive development whereby kids are able to
• Topic Sentence: Use of internet has a potential influence on the kids’ physical health.
• Reason 2: However, the impact on physical health can be positive or negative depending on the internet activity they engage in. When kids spend plenty of their time before computers or other devices that offer Internet services, they are likely to snub physical activities that can improve their health. Adopting the lifestyle whereby the kids only sit to surf without exercises makes them vulnerable to health issues such as obesity. Also, Internet use requires closeness to devices that could lead to eye strain. Some of the internet sites may contain strobe lights that may cause seizures to kids who have epilepsy. On the other hand, some researchers have brought forth arguments that internet sites may have interactive features such as games that enhance physical development especially those games they participate in real time (Patrick, 2015).
• Example 2: Withal, kids, are not able to know what internet feature are ideal for their physical health development and those that may adversely affect them physically. As such, the internet remains to be a big threat to physiological wellbeing.
• Concluding sentence: To sum it up, the internet has serious negative impacts on kids.
• Review major points:

Internet use affects the cognitive development of kids whereby their psychological well-being is adversely affected. Kids may be depressed, isolated or lack focus and attention due to increased use of the internet. Then again, the internet may be a physiological hazard as it may lead to negative physical development. Kids tend to spend a lot of time in front of computers and other devices as they browse the internet leading to inadequate health exercises that are beneficial to human health.

• Reaffirm position: I believe that the internet may be one of the most important technology resources in the current generation, but they present a serious threat to the physical health and cognitive development of children.
• Recommendation or suggestion for future action: However, guardians or parents should regulate or control the use of the internet among their kids. They should enable their kids to access appropriate sites that enable them to develop physiologically and psychologically.

Clinton, C. & P. Steyer, J. (2012). Is the Internet hurting children? – CNN.com . CNN . Retrieved 29 November 2016, from http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/21/opinion/clinton-steyer-internet-kids/

Patrick, J. (2015). Physical and Social Effects of Internet Use in Children . LIVESTRONG.COM . Retrieved 29 November 2016, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/516549-physical-and-social-effects-of-internet-use-in-children/

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Ross Douthat

Is the internet the enemy of progress.

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

It’s unusual when you find a strong dose of pessimism about the future of technological progress highlighted by one of the world’s leading techno-optimists. But if you follow the combative venture capitalist Marc Andreessen on X, you would have seen him giving wide circulation to this passage from Michael Crichton’s 1995 “Jurassic Park” sequel “The Lost World,” in which Crichton’s ever-prescient Dr. Ian Malcolm warns that the internet will put an end to human progress:

“It means the end of innovation,” Malcolm said. “This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they’ll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down … And everybody on Earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it gets harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That’s the effect of mass media — it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there’s a McDonald’s on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there’s less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity — our most necessary resource? That’s disappearing faster than trees. But we haven’t figured that out, so now we’re planning to put five billion people together in cyberspace. And it’ll freeze the entire species … Everyone will think the same thing at the same time. Global uniformity.”

This is the kind of quotation I would normally highlight at the end of this newsletter, in my “This Week in Decadence” feature. But it’s 29 years old, written when the true internet era was still just a gleam in Al Gore’s eye.

And as prophecies go, it’s pretty impressive — up there with Malcolm’s rather more famous prediction about just how bad things would get in John Hammond’s amusement park. The quote doesn’t capture everything about the current age (more on the prophecy’s limits in a moment), but it predicted quite a lot: the popular styles that seem stuck on repeat ; the mid-list musicians and novelists disappearing amid the dominance of megastars; the dwindling interest in new music as the algorithm steers everyone to the Beatles; the “ age of average ” in everything from art and architecture to hotel décor , auto design and Instagram looks.

You could further argue that the passage predicted the Great Stagnation that Tyler Cowen identified in 2011, the productivity slowdown and disappointing economic growth that followed the initial 1990s-era internet boom. You could say that it predicted the remarkable ideological groupthink of the liberal Western leadership class over the same period, the rise of Davos Man and then the heightened elite conformism of the woke era. Finally, you could say that it predicted the striking phenomenon of birthrates declining globally, not just locally, in nearly every country and region touched by the iPhone version of modernity.

This last point is central to the updating of the Malcolm/Crichton thesis offered recently by the George Mason University professor Robin Hanson. Writing for Quillette, he argues that globalization and homogenization have reduced cultural competition in roughly the way that the “Lost World” passage describes. Instead of a bevy of cultural models competing the way private-sector firms do and dying off quickly if they don’t adapt successfully, globalization gives us a tendency toward “macro culture” — a few large-scale cultural models, or maybe eventually even just a global monoculture. This has initial benefits but long-term drawbacks:

The recent big jump in the size of macro cultures has boosted within -culture innovation, powering peace, trade and fast-growing wealth. As a result, our few huge cultures today suffer much less from famine, disease or war. But because of these effects, we should expect to now get much less selection of cultures, and thus less long-run innovation. It’s not just that we’re forgoing opportunities to improve our macro cultures. Selection may also be too weak — at least in the short run — to cancel the mistakes of cultural drift. Shouldn’t we expect that macro cultures, when selection is weak, will drift into dysfunction just as firm cultures do?

This kind of maladaptive cultural drift, Hanson argues, is what’s happening with below-replacement fertility. For a variety of social and economic reasons, the developed world has converged on a reproductive model that’s already leading to rapid population aging and could lead — with South Korea as the blinking-red indicator light — to outright population collapse. This all but guarantees that technological and economic progress will slow down, but Hanson goes further and argues that depopulation may turn the world over to “insular cultures like Mennonites, Amish, and Haredim,” which by “doubling every two decades,” he writes, “look on track to replace our mainline civilization in a few centuries.”

For him, this is basically a fall-of-Rome scenario, with insular religious minorities playing the role of the early Christians and the rest of us cast in the role of the decadent Roman elites. And Hanson suggests that it’s extremely difficult for a culture that’s become universal but also maladaptive to escape this kind of fate, to get back to dynamism without first going through a crackup or collapse that yields more competition in the wreckage.

Now let’s consider the alternative to this kind of pessimism. When he posted the Ian Malcolm quotation, Andreessen did not endorse it; rather, he caveated it, saying that Crichton “was right about this. But also wrong. The internet is also the land of a million shards, cultures, cults.” Meaning that while there is a powerful tendency toward cultural homogenization and global uniformity, the online era also allows for more of Hanson’s within-culture innovation, if you know where to look for it: more conformism at the center, maybe, but more ferment at the fringe; more debilitating groupthink but also more eccentricity and radical experiments.

To develop this argument, you might say that while Crichton’s character got a lot of big things right, his prophecy underestimated the human tendency to react against stagnation and decadence once it begins to set in.

So the past decade or so has delivered polarization and division as well as incurious conformism, with populist rebellions and socialist revivals and extreme-outsider ideas coming into fashion rather than everyone thinking the same thing at the same time — and these have been mediated and encouraged by the same internet that’s encouraged homogeneity.

Outside the West, there are now various explicit attempts to escape the universal politics of global liberalism — the various visions of what Bruno Maçães calls “ civilization states ” in China and India and Russia, the quest for non-Western models of 21st-century development and power. Some of these paths are grim and tyrannical, but they aren’t just seeking sameness and convergence. For good or ill, they’re aiming at the strong cultural competition that Hanson thinks we need.

Meanwhile within the Western world, America, at least, has slipped somewhat free from the Great Stagnation. For all its flaws, Silicon Valley remains an exceptional culture, the American South and West are booming, the artificial intelligence breakthroughs are real, however uncertain their consequences. There are forms of spiritual ferment ( charismatic revivals , pagan experiments, the neo-traditionalism of younger Christians) at work even as the old Christian institutions continue to decline. Even American cinema is showing a few big bright spots after its Covid-era diminishment.

If the rule of a globalized, digitally united world is maladaptive conformity, in other words, you can also see some notable exceptions — enough of them, maybe, to say that we aren’t just waiting for the Amish to take over, that Andreessen’s plethora of shards, cultures and cults will suffice to deliver renewal from within.

What makes me a bit less optimistic than the venture capitalist is my sense that it’s hard for the shards and subcultures to scale up. On the largest scale, the alternatives to the globalized macro culture often seem to be either fake or failing: Russia is a gangster state, not a civilizational alternative; China is plunging into the low-fertility future faster than the West, and so on.

But on the smaller scale, the smallness is the problem. You can have a micro culture that resists the macro culture, an exceptionalism in one town, one region, one college, one very online community, but if we aren’t going to just sink into civilizational old age, at some point this nonconformism has to break out and actually change the world. You need your weird art scenesters to reshape the movie business, your trads to build cathedrals as well as home-school co-ops, your high-fertility exceptions to retain their fecundity while adding more non-zealous normies to their ranks, your populists and radicals to actually govern effectively, not just gripe and critique. And so far, we have only scanty models of this happening.

(This issue applies to the Amish and Mennonites as well. I don’t think insular religious subcultures could take over the West the way Christians took over the Roman Empire, because their current success depends on their insularity. To exert real influence of the kind the early Christians gained, they would have to shed some of that separatism, and once they did so, they would immediately be subject to the same homogenizing forces as everyone else.)

I also worry — and this is a running disagreement I’ve had with Andreessen — that the pull of online reality and headset-mediated simulations almost automatically carries us toward a variation on the Crichton dystopia, a version of stagnation that’s sustained by the illusion of exploration, an age of fundamental conformity disguised by the personal tailoring of everyone’s private holodeck.

Andreessen often worries , and reasonably so, about how A.I. could be co-opted by a culture of conformity, deployed as a tool of ideological groupthink , the chat prompt’s minders herding everyone into the same narrow zone of speech and thought. But A.I. also seems like it could carry us more organically into a future of personalized illusions, comfortable numbness, simulated relationships and precision-guided digital addictions just as easily as into a future of A.I.-enabled artistic masterpieces, cancer cures, self-driving cars and Mars expeditions.

I think there’s hope of escape from the Crichton prophecy. But if we don’t escape, these will be the terms of our imprisonment: a wired-together environment that freezes us in place while being so perpetually stimulating and distracting that only the dropouts and the despairing notice what’s really going on.

Razib Khan on how cities make and break civilizations.

Alexandra Walsham on early modern atheism .

Michael Brendan Dougherty on the inescapable 1990s .

Josh Dzieza on the World Wide Web in the depths of the sea .

Ruxandra Teslo on a proposed cure for cavities .

Tyler Cowen interviews Peter Thiel.

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I’ll be speaking at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla., this coming Tuesday, April 23, at 7 p.m., on the future of the Catholic Church. The event is free and open to the public.

Ross Douthat has been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author, most recently, of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.” @ DouthatNYT • Facebook