Computer's and Internet's Negative Effects on Family Relationship

The impacts of technology are more visible in families. Although, it truly has a long list of advantages; However, there are drawbacks to incorporating technology into households. Almost every family owns a smartphone, computer, and laptop, which means technology dominates almost every family. Because of that, the traditional way of parenting has become rare nowadays and it lessens the value of parenting. Below are the negative effects of technology, specifically the use of computers and the Internet among family relationships.

Firstly, the usage of technology reduces the family bonding. As the members of the family start to use their digital devices religiously, the attention for each other was now limited. It can result in many problems like lack of communication and resulted in conflicts or fights between family members. One study found that when the working parent arrived home after work, his or her children were so immersed in technology that the parent was greeted only 30 percent of the time and was totally ignored 50 percent of the time. For me the foundation of every family is not wealth, shelter or any material things, the foundation of the family is communication and bonding. How family members can understand each other if they don’t talk to each other, how can they help each other if they don’t understand each other? To have a good and strong family relationship they must communicate and bond as well. Sadly, lack of communication and bonding occurs in my own family, gadgets get our attention most of the time. Even at the dinner table, instead of sharing what happened in our day we choose to browse on our phone. And one thing that makes me sad that our digital devices give us more entertainment or happiness than bond with our own family. They say when you love someone, you’ll give your attention to them, but I’ve noticed in our generation our love for our family decreased its value because of the technology that divides our attention.

Another rising issue, the parents are having a hard time in monitoring their own children, despite the fact that most parents see their children every single day. They cannot fully observe what their kids are browsing on the internet since they are busy providing wants and needs for their families. Computer and mobile devices offer children independence in communicating with their friends or other people. In previous generations, usually most households, they only have telephone serving as their communication devices, so if children want to contact their friend, they will use their home phone which might be answered by the parents. In this way, parents before modern technology can monitor the person that wants to talk to their children. Unlike today, times have drastically changed, most children in our generation, especially the teenager and pre-teenagers, seek this opportunity to have freedom from the involvement of their parents. Now besides communication, the internet contains everything, and you can find anything on it from child stuff to adult kinds of stuff. Inevitably, children will be carried to the adult stuff side of the internet, which is a scary thing for parents.

One more factor that contributes to the negative impact of the internet in households, the kids are being indulged in the media and all the bad information that can get on the internet, can go against the authority of their parents. My third point is subsequent if parents didn’t monitor well their children this issue or problem will bound to happen. Morally speaking, every kid should honor their parents all the days of their life, no matter how old or how young their parents are. By honoring our parents, the bible ensures that we can live longer, and it is the first commandment that has promise. Now that children are not monitored well by their parents, they start degrading the value of the authority of their parents. By transgressing the rules of their parents and answering them in a non-respectful way. Inside every social media, there is always a kid or teenager who disrespects her/his parents that post something against his/her parents and some people agree, in that way the culture of degrading the parents starts to spread. There are many problems to address when it come to this matter, but I would like to focus more on the problems that the video games cause. Digital games itself are not bad the people’s attitude about it is the one that is bad. Since this has become the escape tool of teenagers from the realities of life. It gives them satisfaction and happiness that they think they cannot obtain from their parents. Inside most of the online video games contain violence, drugs, and sex that is not applicable to the children below 18, but according to Statista, which is a statistic site, 21% of the video game player comes from those below 18 by 2019. Indulging in video games can affect not only their physical health but also mental health, perspective and the way the children communicate with their parents. I’ll take the boy that I’ve watched form Dr. Phil, which is a talk show that discusses life strategies, as an example. This 12-year old boy plays video games whenever he wants and talks to his mother in a very disrespectful way and her mother is in a lot of pain because of that.

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Not only the parent and children relationship but also the spousal relationship is affected by the use of the internet and digital devices. According to the Pew Research Center, 25 percent of cell owners in serious relationships say the phone distracts their spouse or partner when they are alone together. Bonding between the couple was not limited. Not only the children are being indulged with their phones, their parents too. The increase in cheating in the relationship was significantly increased according to some studies due to the modern technology we have today. Affairs used to be limited to sexual interaction, but today we have a new range of so-called micro-cheating propagated online. Cheating comes in different sizes, liking other girls/boys’ picture or post is considered cheating for some people, and it definitely causes conflict on most couples. Maintaining an online dating profile, flirtatious comments, sexting with someone else, or even intimate online friendship are also considerably cheating. 'In the past, affairs were defined by the physical. But with the internet, we've come to accept emotional affairs as part of infidelity. It includes everything's that's sort of on the fringes of cheating,' said Katherine Hertlein

The risk of infidelity among spousal relationships is now multiplied and the main thing that is affected by this is none other than, the children. They’re the one who suffers the most when one parent is involved in cheating, it can cause depression, distraction in their studies, emotional and physical instability.

Now let us proceed to issue where the family is becoming addicted and dependent on the internet. Internet addiction appears as a serious public health issue due to its immediate relationship with social functioning problems, adolescent health problems and risk behavior stated by a study from the Department of Applied Social Science in Hong Kong. Technology is addictive by design. Phone apps are religiously sending notification indicating users to spend more time on it. New technology makes our lives easier than past times where people need to work hard to acquire things. A study reported that when teens reach 18, they’re apparently spending upwards of 85 hours a month on their smartphones. Internet addiction is related to problems like lack of communication, unproductive life, and mental health problems. A recent BBC article ‘I wish my mom’s phone was never invented’ presented a Louisana class where children were asked about an invention that they did not like. 4 out of 21 students said mobile phone. One wrote “If I had to tell you what invention I don’t like, I would say that I don’t like the phone. I don’t like the phone because my parents are using their phones every day. A phone is sometimes a really bad habit. I hate my mom’s phone and I wish she never had one. That is an invention that I don’t like”. The internet and digital devices were now more of a need today. Every company requires an email as a pre-requisite to a job, University/college professors use an app or email to teach and send a lesson to their students. Including the internet in the household itself is not a bad thing but the problem occurs when the members of the family are relying too much on the internet, engaging themselves too much on the fantasy or expectation and not realizing how hard the reality of life. Children will grow up more likely by being weak and incompetent if he/she becomes internet dependent.

To conclude, technology is flourishing by leaps and bounds. It is hard to cancel out technology in our life because it is everywhere to some extent it is required on some agenda on family lives. But the drawbacks of incorporating technology in the family can destroy their bonding together. Controlling kids becomes a controversial issue today and the authority of parents is now questioned because of the use of social media. The spousal relationship was now jeopardized. And finally, the most obvious disadvantage of technology among family relationships is Internet addiction that causes many serious problems. Parenting before modern technology was hard enough but now that we have many technological resources that result in various issues parenting was become even harder.