Teenagers’ Second World

            Nowdays, every-one surely know about internet. Every-one of course ever being online. Internet is like a second world, because it provides all we need and we want. Internet also gives best serve for us to do every-thing in cyber world. Internet with its kind of facilities can attract every-one to waste a lot of time just for internet. Because every-one also have different needs when surfing on internet and it can make people sit down in front of the computer for a lot of time.

            Every-one knows about internet. Every-one also can operate internet, especially teenager. why? Because, in this era, teenager’s problems and needs can be solved in short time with internet. Beside that, globalization can make teenager use internet in many kind of perspective, like social, education, entertainment, culture, and so on. With many kind of perspective, it can make internet has great potential, especially for teenager. And that potential still have pro and cons.

            According to Ms. Mizuko Ito, a scientist researcher in Dept.  University California, (“it may look as though the kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on My Space or sending instant messages. There’s been some confusion about what kids are doing online. Mostly there socializing with their friends”) (Ito,2008;1). From her arguments, (we can see that the internet is very close relate with internet), and teenager also use the internet like second world. It’s like impact of internet for teenager that teenager can be addicted with internet, but it depends on with every-one that can control him/her self.

            With the arguments above, we can imagine how teenager can make a second world from internet. The internet has a double edged sword characteristic for teenager: providing many opportunities for learning while exposing teenager to potentially negative aspect. As we know, internet not only provides significant benefits for children/teenager such as socialization, entertainment, education, and so on. But it also gives negative aspect such as plagiarism, social crime/cyber crime, and can be addiction.

            If we look at the positive impact of internet, it has many positives about that. If we look from social perspective, we can do charity, connecting people, communication, and so on. If from education perspective, can help teenagers to study and solve the problem about homework. From culture, internet is useful for teach teenagers about culture in digital form. And from entertainment, teenager can refresh their mind after being bored with study. That’s good if we make internet a second world for us with so many positive aspects that can make teenager not meaningless with internet.

            But, like double edged sword characteristic, internet also has bad impact, and the effect has great potential that can make teenager have to be able to control with activity on internet. Like positive impact, we also have 4 perspectives. If we look from social perspective, we can’t avoid that social crime is developing now. And the all main problem for teenager who surf in social network. From education perspective, we as a student still has many homework that can make student search in  internet and just co-past (copy-paste) to simplify the time which can be called as plagiarism. In culture, still many proof culture ridicule. In entertainment so many facilities in there such as music, video, games, and so on that can make “teenager addiction”.

            Base from Yahoo and Carat  survey at December 2003, the teenager ages 12-17 used the internet for an average of 16.7 hours per week (www.articlebases.com;2005;1). The survey show that teenagers very close with internet, moreover teenager called internet is second world. It’s fact that teenagers can waste a lot of time just for internet. If we think again, it can called addiction. Why? Because the average of time in a week is including in great potential for teenager to be trapped in negative impact. It’s good if teenager can control their-self because with self-control, they can do self protection. But, in fact,  teenager’s ages is labile, where in that ages,  teenagers still have low self-control, and it can make they trapped to negative aspect. Dr. Mubarak Ali of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia,  said “substance abuse is something visible. Psychological addictions are caused by wanting to hang on to or enhance positive feelings and stimuli, like winning in gambling, playing, computer games, or projecting what ever personality you like in chat rooms“ (Ali,2005;1)

            With the complex problem about negative impact of internet to teenager, we must solve the problem, because if we don’t solve the problem, problem can be more complex. From religion perspective, we must increase our faithful to the God, because with that, we can know more about the positives and negatives difference. From social, we must be careful with every-one who is kind with us, because every-one can trap us in cyber crime. In education, about plagiarism, we as a student must have awareness if plagiarism is bad and can give big impact for us a student, the example we can’t study more about this material. And it can include in cyber crime.

            From the explanation of the teenager second world, we, as a student and still teenager, we must can divide positives and negatives from internet. And also we must know how to use internet wisely. Especially education, we must more respecting people creation by not doing plagiarism. My advice “Internet in our world, but our world not just internet.”

REFERENCES:

1.      Williams, Louise; Tim Colquhon.( 2005).Teenagers at Risk of Addiction.[www.theage.com.au].available from: http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/caught-in-the-net/2005/11/22/1132421666935.html?page=2

2.      Lewin, Tamar.( 2008).Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing.[www.nytimes.com].available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/us/20internet.html?_r=1

3.      anonymus.( 2005).Effect of Internet on Teenagers.[www.articlebases.com].available from: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/effect-of-internet-on-teenagers-4102796.html