(opinion article)

Nowadays, the use of the Internet is increasing especially among adolescence or more accurately, students. The Internet issue is discussed by adults and parents. Most of them are worried that the use of Internet is dangerous to their kids. Some others said that the Internet may bring benefits to their children especially to those who will be sitting for an examination.

In my opinion, Internet has both benefits and drawbacks. First of all, let me  talk about the benefits first. As we know, Internet is mostly used by students. By surfing internet, students can visit various websites to assist their studies. The examples of popular websites are tutortv.com , unicliq.com , and tutor.com.my. They can visit the websites and revise their studies in more exciting way. Some of  them are free. Students can visit it anytime they want. The websites also provide useful notes and exercises. At the same time, students can get additional information that they cannot find it in books. For instance, they can go to ‘Google’ or ‘Yahoo’ search engines to search for more ideas to write an essay. In short, Internet provides vast informations and knowledge which is very beneficial for the students.

Next, the Internet also provides lots of social networks such as Facebook , Twitter, MySpace and many other. Through these social networks, we can add more friends and make new friends. We can also know friends from other country as these social networks are used internationally. Other than adding friends, we can also strengthen our relationship with our friends and family who are staying far away from us using Skype. We can see them in front of our eyes even though they are actually far away  from us through web camera.

Besides, the Internet also offers entertainment. We can watch videos of our favourite artists by just one click through ‘Youtube’ website. We can also watch favourite movies without paying. Plus, there are many artists born from ‘Youtube’. So, fans can know more about the artists from Youtube. Meanwhile, 4shared.com provides tracks, videos and files  that can be downloaded for free!  Internet users can enjoy themselves at anytime watching their favourite artists’ performance for free.

The Internet does not only offers benefits for students but also to those who want to gain more money. It also provides business opportunities. As for example, mudah.my gives a wide room for surfers to promote anything they want to sell. Through this, people with no job can gain money and support their lives by doing the online business.

However, as I said earlier, Internet also brings bad effects to its users. Firstly, it can encourage cyber crimes. Besides that, students who spend too much time on Internet may neglect their studies and do not finish their homework. This should be avoided as studies are important especially to teenagers.

Although Internet can add more friends to our list, yet, it still can develop anti-social behaviour. Not all of the users use Internet to make friends, some of them only play video games or just sit down watching videos on Youtube. They will only sit and ignore what is happening around them. The worst thing is, they may not realise that there is an earthquake out there! This anti-social behaviour may lead to health problems. The users will just stay at home and sit in front of computer and this will cause them to be lazy couch potatoes. It will also lead to obesity.

Next, most students will not be attracted to surf knowledgeable websites, but wasting their time on other non-beneficial things. Wasting time on Internet can cause students to neglect their studies. Not only time is wasted but also money. With the uses of more electricity non-stop, utility bills may increase dramatically. We just do not pay for the electric bills but also internet monthly bills.

The conclusion is, everything has its own benefits and drawbacks. However, it depends on how we are using it. If we spend more time using it for benefits, we will get positive effects. But if we use it more in a non-beneficial way, we will get negative effects. So, it depends on you.