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Answer to: “The Dangers Of The Internet”

I will always remember how my Father, Aunts and Uncles talked about the internet and how is ruining this generation of kids, destroying our brain cells, and worsting our vision. How we are always on our phones or playing video games all day. How using the internet will get us to nowhere and how “we are addicted to the internet in general”. But is that really the case? Are we really addicted as they make it seen we are? Is the internet really that dangerous? “The Dangers Of The Internet” is a youtube video posted by the channel of the same platform called: The School Of Life, Narrated by: Alain de Botton. In this video Alain starts talking about the internet and we all know how great it is and all the benefits that comes with it, like how it connects people together and how its developing so fast to a point that 3/7 billion people are connected by the internet. But then he focuses the rest of the video talking about how dangerous is the internet and how we need to know these facts before using it. He summarizes his ideas into 4 main points. Those main points being that: We (humans, or internet users more specifically) are addicted to it, that “We Know To Much, But Understand Too Little” and that our private stuff is being know and checked by others. After he stating this arguments, I decided to slightly agree with him, but i believe the internet is not as dangerous as he portrait to be, and that he is exaggerating his evidence, and even that some of those “dangers” are even beneficial.

Reason number 1: He argues the fact that because the internet is so good, we are addicted to it, meaning that we rely on it, and don’t get me wrong, I think that people do spend incredibles amounts of times on their phones and computers, but I wouldn’t call it addiction, but more like a everyday life “tool”, or “entertainment devices”. In other words, I think that Alain De Botton is exaggerating his claim to make the internet look more dangerous than what it is. This claim could be followed up by childmind.org article titled “Is Internet Addiction Real?” where they said “Addiction doesn’t really capture the behavior we’re seeing,” says Dr. Matthew Cruger, a neuropsychologist and the director of the Learning and Development Center at the Child Mind Institute. “With addiction you have a chemical that changes the way we respond, that leads us to be reliant on it for our level of functioning. That’s not what’s happening here. We don’t develop higher levels of tolerance. We don’t need more and more screen time in order to be able to function.”. This means that calling Addiction the everyday use of internet device is exaggerating, since that doesn’t create a dependency on the internet, doesn’t make us rely on the internet. Alain De bottom then starts stating facts and examples of why we are addicted to the internet. Facts like like “⅗ people checked their phone first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night”. He said this to present it as some form of addiction the fact the you check your phone in the morning and at night without giving any sense of information of why. This fact does not mean that people are addicted to phones or internet, they might check their phone first thing in the morning because they just turn off the alarm, maybe because they want to talk to someone special first thing in the morning, maybe you do use it for entertainment purposes, but that doesn’t mean we are addicted as stated before; same logic applies for going to sleep at night. He also stated the fact that “9/10 people rather use their phone than reading book”. Which again states facts to try to make the internet look addicted, but in reality is normal that people prefer using phones than reading a book, this is because not only you can read any book you want digitally and have it everywhere you go at the reach of your pockets, but also because a phone offers so much more than a book, because you can navigate the internet with it, and as we know the possibilities of what you can search, watch or listen in the internet are almost unlimited, which indeed could cause the people using their book to be distracted by all these apps, and search engines, but that is not were near close to be a “danger” or “addiction” as he claims to be.

Reason # 2: In his second argument “We know too much but understand too little” he states how through the internet we have a lot of new information created and presented per day. How in Facebook, every minute there is 2.5 million people commenting, how in Youtube, there is 72 hours of videos upload every minute, how every day 200 million emails are send, the fact that we have created as much information in 2 days, as between 12,000 BC to 2003, and so much more examples. But the thing is, that none of those things should not matter. The fact that we create a lot of information should not be a problem, in fact I think the opposite. I think that so much information is beneficial for us users, because means that every second there is something new, that every second we can find more answers, that we are getting more creative, and doing somethings that we would not do before, that we can get inspired by this new information, that we’ll just continue doing something new every time. But then he also states, how the fact that there is too much information can hurt our understanding of historical events and accuracy. Which again it is something to keep in mind every time you are doing research, or getting informed about a topic, to always know who and where is your source to know if it should be trusted or not. Specially with websites helping you how to get good sources instead of bad ones, one site such as utep.edu, which says that one way to differentiate a good source from a bad one is “ Look at the three letters at the end of the site’s domain name, such as “edu” (educational), “gov” (government), “org” (nonprofit), and “com” (commercial). Generally, .edu and .gov websites are credible, but beware of sites that use these suffixes in an attempt to mislead”. But the problem is that Alain DeBottom states this as a “danger” as something that could cause harm, which is to exaggerated for what actually is. Misinformation have always been a thing even before the internet, and even though it is true that the internet made it a bigger issue; is just something we just need to keep in mind of, not something that we should fear from.

Reason #3: He states that “70% of people fear their information to be shared”. But I say, that you shouldn’t fear anything if you haven’t done something wrong. The government uses our information to know more about us and protect us, this can be shown by the violation of our 4th and 5th amendment by the surveillance placed after 9/11 to keep us save from another terrorist attack. This argument can be supported by the own Alain when he states that “the head of the police force said that is almost impossible to commit a murder and remain undetected”. This shows how the fact that our private stuff is being looked at is for our own good. According to washingtonpost.com “Any efforts to “rein in” the agency must allow for the possibility that change risks serious damage to U.S. security and the country’s ability to navigate in an increasingly uncertain world.”, this shows how all the data collected by the US government/NSA is to help the US military be more prepare in battle and know their enemy, which in the long term is more beneficial for us and our country, making it safer. My interview is about this “danger” too, I interviewed my cousin which was eager to help me in this essay, and when I asked him if he feels safe when using the internet, he said “I don’t feel safe using the internet because I know some websites sell my information to corporations and that invades my privacy”. Which actually is similar of what Alain De bottom said in his argument when he said that in 1 year 5000 pound (6,500$) worth of data is sold to companies. But then when asked the question of what does he thinks about the government using our information for the well being of the nation he responded “I think that the government has the right to invade our privacy for protection purposes, I think it’s more beneficial because the government can track down possible terrorist plans base on what you do on the internet.” then asked if he is willing to sacrifice his privacy for the nation, he said “ if is for the major good, then yeah”. This interview not only agrees with my argument about giving up our privacy over our national security, But also brings the point about other companies selling our information to others, which is a really big issue since that’s not for security purposes no more, but more for marketing and selling purposes. Which in that case I do agree with DeBottom saying to be careful of what you post in the internet and in which website do you posted on.

In Conclusion everything in life have its dangers and thinks to keep in mind. The internet is no different, the internet. My whole essay was based on how I slightly agree with him in saying that the internet is not a 100% safe, and that indeed it have a lot of dangers. But that the way he portrays and states those dangers are exaggerated and that is wrong the way he portrays evidence without context just to make your argument look better. That if people use the internet for a long time, doesn’t meant that they are addicted to it, it might be because they just find it entertainment. That the fact that there is a lot of wrong information in the internet doesn’t mean that it should stop you from researching and learning from legitimate websites. That even though yes, the internet doesn’t fully respect your privacy and personal information, but some of that information is needed for the well being of the nation.

DeBotton, Alain. The Dangers of The Internet. December 8, 2014