The Internet’s Effects on Students Lives: Essay Introduction
Technology, particularly the Internet, has changed the lives of students who have access in various ways. The effects of technology ripple out and reach even those students who may not have direct access to Internet but whose professors have the privilege of accessing and utilizing it.
Students with direct access to the Internet have wider access to information and knowledge, which is essential for their career development. Such instantaneous access to the Internet aids research and facilitates faster knowledge acquisition, development, and even sharing. Such a privilege puts students ahead of those who do not have access to the Internet whether directly or indirectly.
Positive Impact of Internet on Students’ Life
Technology has condensed the world into a tiny village, or like it has been put elsewhere, the world has become a global village. While there could be enormous geographical distance and difference between a student in Australia and the one in North America, information-wise, the two students are more or less at the same location. Thanks to technology.
So technology has worked to bridge the gap (geographical) between students provided they have equal access and availability of the requisite technological needs. Students on the extreme opposite end of the earth can share and exchange ideas and opinions instantly via online chatting.
The ability to reach a worldwide sample population through technology (Internet), and access to diverse materials on the Internet makes the whole idea of research easier and more fascinating than before. Students carrying out research find it less tedious; for instance, they can conduct an online survey through online questionnaires.
Due to the influence of technology, students have abandoned their careers and opted for a fast-growing and vibrant career in information technology. The popularity it is gaining has compelled and persuaded many students to change their career aspirations and therefore changing their lives.
At the moment, the world is on a mass exodus toward technology, and students can not afford the luxury of sitting back and watch a “neo- evolution” that they are not part of. The world is moving fast, and they have to keep pace. They have to be “there” if they want to remain relevant anymore.
Online jobs, for instance, data entry jobs, have provided students with the option of working from their rooms while they study so as to earn some money to support themselves. All a student needs is a computer connected to the Internet and his head!
Technology (Internet) has made it possible for students to shop online without having to travel to the actual stores. They can shop from whichever corner of the world. Again students are able to order for educational materials online instantly, a process that would be more tedious without technology.
Learning has been rendered a flexible undertaking. Professor of English, Andrea Lunsford, said: “the Wallberg hall classrooms allow us to carry out multiple modes of collaborations in class and allow students to continue those collaborations at other sites including their dorm room.”
Technology enables students to adjust the learning environment to suit their needs in the Wallberg Hall of Stanford University. Isn’t this fascinating? This evidences the new face technology is giving to learning as a process.
Students are also relieved of the burden of having to carry a whole bulk of learning materials, inter alia, books, and articles. These materials can be stored in small devices, for instance, a flash disk from where the students can retrieve the information at whatever time they wish. Maybe the era of students carrying a heavy bag on their back to school is slowly fading away.
The idea of not having the relevant manpower is not much of a worry in learning institutions today. Technology makes it possible for students in America to attend a lecture in Australia! They do not participate as passive but rather as active participants.
I am sure to our great ancestors this could be an all-time impossibility. Put simply, Unimaginable! But today? Not a surprise anymore. Through E-Learning, one can earn their degree online while on a job or at home. Technology has provided students with more options for how to do things.
The possibilities of technology are inexhaustible. Maybe this is the same thought that prompted Isaac Asimov to write about a fictional computer called Multivac, which could not answer the question of how the amount of entropy could be massively reduced.
Though Multivac finally gets the answer, sadly, there is no one to hear it. Maybe this is to say that while today some problems may seem insoluble, with time technology will provide answers to them. Asimov catapults us into a future with technological solutions to the toughest human concerns.
Negative Impact of Internet on Students’ Life
Well, all we have considered may be seen as the positive effects of technology. The field is not without negative effects. Technology has worked to change students’ lives negatively. Firstly, it has made some students lazier. Some students, instead of doing research, just download information from the Internet and plagiarize it.
This is retrogressive and does not do the students any good. Again most students are made lazier by the fact that they can mail their assignments to an outsourcing firm and have their work done and returned to them within the stipulated time. This has commercialized education and makes education to lose its succinct meaning.
Technology has a role in students’ moral degradation. Access to such junks as pornography and serious crime movies and literature has eroded student’s morals. They no longer see these things as vices but as part of the day-to-day life. To them, there is nothing wrong with reading and watching such materials.
Unfortunately, they don’t just stop here; they go the extra mile and actually do them. The result is evils are escalating. Maybe this is what Asimov meant by entropy! The question of what will happen when the disorder finally hits the height puzzles many people: the disorder of moral degradation and over-reliance on computers. Man is insidiously losing his identity because of technology.
The Internet’s Effects on Students Lives: Essay Conclusion
A major reason for technology’s success is the convenience attached to it. It is more instant, gives wider access to information, and reduces demand for paper and bulk in general. Again the computer is faster and more accurate than human beings.
If there is a means that can help me do the same job at a faster rate and more accurately with actually less effort, why not opt for it? Anyone would be tempted to have a firm grip on such a way of doing things. I would concur with anyone who argues that this is the rationale behind the success of the technology.