Teen Relationships: When Your Teen Suffers Their First Break-Up

There’s no love quite like the first love; unfortunately, the first love also tends to be among the most painful when things inevitably end. While your teen may be walking through the house with a permanent smile on her face and visions of forever in her mind, you know that it’s likely just a matter of time before the bloom falls from the rose and real life sets in. Helping your teen navigate the painful and complicated world of surviving her first heartbreak isn’t easy, but it’s something that every parent will inevitably have to help with along the way. Handling the situation badly can be actively damaging to your own relationship with your teenager, so be sure that you have a basic idea of how to proceed in order to help her recover without sacrificing the harmony in your home.

Be Supportive, Not Smothering

Your teen needs to know that you’re there for her when she needs you, but she’ll also need to deal with the trauma and pain of her first real break-up in her own way. That may mean hours on the phone with her friends dissecting what went wrong and exploring the natural journey of grief, or it could mean throwing herself into extracurricular activities in a bid to fill up all of her free time. Provided that she doesn’t resort to risky or dangerous behavior as a means of soothing the pains of her broken heart, it’s wise to let her set the pace. Make sure that you’re available when she asks for help, but that you don’t smother her or foist unsolicited advice on her every time she comes into the room.

Avoid Using Language That Minimizes Her Experience

As a parent who’s watching a child suffer, your first instinct may be to downplay the importance of the event in hopes that she’ll realize how inconsequential a high-school break up is. Before minimizing her pain and implying that her feelings of grief are exaggerated or melodramatic, think back to your first experience with heartbreak. While you certainly know now that it wasn’t the end of the world, that doesn’t mean it didn’t feel that way at the time. It’s entirely possible to offer reassurance and support without minimizing the experience, and almost always the most effective method.

Don’t Bash The Ex

When someone hurts your child, no matter how old she is, it’s human nature to think less of them. If you weren’t wild about your teen’s partner before the break-up, it’s even easier to resort to bashing and dismissive language. Keep in mind, however, that high school romances have a way of resurfacing. Even if your teenager swears that she’s calling off a relationship for good, there’s a decent chance that reconciliation will bring that ex back into the fold at some point. If you’ve vocally expressed your distaste for her partner or confessed to never caring much for them in the first place, that reunion might be a tense one for everyone involved. Focus on building your child back up and helping her to recover, rather than tearing down the party that you feel is responsible for her pain.

Be Prepared for a Relapse

Teenagers tend to possess fairly mercurial dispositions, so your teen may seem to be over the worst of her mourning and on the road to recovery when a massive relapse forces her back to square one. The best way to deal with such an abrupt loss of progress is to be prepared for it from the beginning. Hope for the best, but realize that the first sighting of an ex with a new flame can be enough to restart a teenage girl’s grieving process altogether.

Offer Distractions, Not a Lecture

You can give your teen an “I told you so” lecture, reminding her of your warnings about getting too close to a teenage partner or shaming her for choices that she made over the course of her relationship, but it will do absolutely no good. In fact, it’s more likely to push her away and make her uncomfortable with the idea of approaching you in the future. After all, who wants to approach someone for help during a painful time when the only help they’ll get is a sound scolding? Even if you have a particular bone to pick with your teen, the days immediately following a breakup might not be the appropriate time to address the situation.

Familiarize Yourself With the Signs of Depression

To you, the end of a high school romance may seem like little more than a blip on the radar. To your teen, however, that break-up is the radar. While it’s certainly not true that every teen who goes through a breakup will feel like it’s the end of the world, some take such things harder than others. Teens that are already prone to depression or who are at risk can begin to suffer from the condition in the aftermath of a particularly messy break-up, so be sure that you’re apprised of the risks and understand how to spot the signs of teenage depression.

Online Safety: Digital Parenting Today

Parents know the things to do keep their kids safe around home, like keeping an eye on them outside, teaching them stranger danger and to travel in groups. But what about in the virtual world? It’s shown to be just as dangerous, and if certain information gets in the wrong hands, your child, your family, and your identity could all be at risk.

The Web offers a plethora of fun and educational things for kids to do, plus all the social networking that is huge for tweens and teens. But along with that comes plenty of places for danger. Just as parents need to talk to their kids about safety in the everyday real world, they also must discuss safety precautions related to the Internet, and make sure their kids get it.

What can parents do? How do they start the conversation? It is important to cover the dangers – all of them – in age-appropriate language to help kids understand the dangers of giving away information online.

Talk, Talk, Talk

The most important thing parents can do is talk to their kids, tweens, and teens. Make sure they know the dangers that are prevalent online, whether sexual predators, those that want to steal identities and financial information, and any other type of cybercriminal. Make sure to keep lines of communication open so kids feel comfortable talking about anything relating to the Internet that bothers them.

Set Clear Internet Rules

Depending on the kids’ ages, parents may have different rules. Young children should never even give out their name. Once kids get older and more into social media, reinforce the importance of careful posting and sharing – what goes on the Internet is there forever! Nothing personal should be posted or shared, like address, phone number, or credit card information.

Identity Theft

When it comes to personal information, it’s easier than most think to get other’s information. If a site looks fishy, it probably is. Parents need to make sure their kids understand to never give out personal information like credit card numbers, bank accounts, or social security numbers without parental permission, even if they are buying something.

If a child sees something like “accepts credit cards” or “enter information here,” he needs to let a parent know and stop what he’s doing. Once credit card information or other personal numbers are in the hands of others, it’s tough to reverse the damage. The best rule is never give it out.

How to Start This Conversation

Start talking about Internet safety when kids are young. Keep the computer in family areas so activity can be monitored. As kids get older, reinforce these topics. Let them know age-appropriate instances of what can happen if things like cyberbullying or credit card theft happen. Parents need to let children know that they are always available, even if mistakes are made, so they can solve things together.

The bottom line is: Don’t give out information! Whether it’s social, personal, or financial, kids need to keep this to themselves. Parents should stay tuned in to not only what goes in the world of online security, but also what their kids are doing online. Awareness is key. And, parents, keep reinforcing how important it is to your kids!

Cyber-Gossip and Cyberbullying: Peer Cruelty Is Wrong

October is Bullying Prevention Month.

Gossip can be mean. Bullies can build on gossip and create stories and ugliness about a student that can go viral in seconds.

In today’s internet age, gossip can be spread at lightning speed to hundreds, thousands or millions of people. The new “party line” is cyberspace where millions of people can all access the same information instantaneously. Just get on your computer, iPhone, iPad or Smartphone  and let the rumors fly.

Here are 10 ways people (including kids) can us new technology to rapidly spread gossip (in no particular order).

1. Email – One way to spread a rumor quickly is to send an email to all the contacts in your account, except the one the rumor is about, of course. Then they can forward it to all their contacts and on it goes from there. You better hope they delete your name when they forward it, or you might get blamed for starting it.
2. Facebook – Post your gossip on facebook and all your friends will know about it instantly. If they “like” it, comment on it or repost it, all their friends will see it too. Pretty soon you’ve got the rumor spreading quickly.
3. Instagram – Another social networking sight great for gossiping is Instagram. Post that picture and watch the rumors spread like wildfire.
4. Twitter – You can tweet a rumor and all your Twitter followers will know your juicy gossip in 140 characters or less. They can re-tweet it to all their followers and in no time the gossip is flying through cyberspace.
5. Blogs – Some people love to spread gossip through their blogs. Even unintentional rumors are sometimes started by bloggers.
6. Website – You won’t believe some of the stuff you find posted on websites, and you shouldn’t either. There are whole websites put on the web just for the purpose of spreading misinformation. Always remember to check their sources.
7. YouTube – If you have a registered YouTube account you can upload an unlimited number of videos. If you have a video of someone doing something dubious, this is the best way to spread that rumor to millions of viewers.
8. Comments – A great way to anonymously spread gossip is to post a comment on a website, blog or YouTube video. You can log in under an assumed username and say all kinds of outrageous things without revealing your identity.
9. Chat rooms – Another anonymous way to spread rumors are internet chat rooms. You can start with an offhand comment and embellish it as you go.
10. Texting – If you see or hear something juicy to gossip about, you can send a text message to all your friends. That will get the thumbs flying as the rumor gets spread.

The new social media available has taken gossiping to a whole new level. Unfortunately this can lead to cyber bullying and be very traumatizing to vulnerable people. Celebrities and politicians are easy targets for internet gossip and careers are ruined by unintended tweets. 

Everyone should use the new technology responsibly, but many abuse their new found privileges. Be careful what you put out into cyberspace or it may come back to haunt you and always check the sources of what you see or read. Chances are it’s just more cyber-gossip.

Sexual Education and Teens: The Peer Pressure to Have Sex

School is back in session and the peer pressure is back in full swing.  Raising teens in today’s world is not easy.  The pressure to fit-in is always going to be complicated.

Whether your teenager’s health classes at school take an abstinence-only approach to sexual education or not, the responsibility of encouraging abstinence still falls largely upon your shoulders as a parent. Sexual activity at an early age could potentially lead to an unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases or both. Teenagers are beginning to experience adult urges, but still have an underdeveloped sense of the impulse control that governs most adult social interaction.
Approaching your teen about sexuality and abstinence doesn’t have to be awkward and uncomfortable, though, especially if you’ve established a foundation of open, honest communication.

Get to Know Your Teen
It’s not easy to talk to someone that you don’t really know, especially if your lack of mutual familiarity makes a frank conversation about sex painfully awkward. In order to effectively teach your teenager why he should avoid sexual activity until he’s older and more mature, you’ll have to be able to speak comfortably about other things, too. It’s also important that you know who his friends are, what he’s interested in and who he’s dating. The peer group around your teenager will have a certain amount of influence over his decisions, especially if he’s involved in a romantic relationship. You’ll need to tailor your conversations regarding sexuality to meet his individual situation, something you simply can’t do if you don’t know these basic bits of information.

Avoid Moral Ambiguity
If abstinence from premarital sex is important to your family because of your religious beliefs, you have concrete reasons aside from teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases for encouraging such behavior. Teenagers tend to think that the worst-case scenario doesn’t apply to them, and while these situations happen to other people, they’ll never happen to them. Heads of secular households will need to avoid attaching an ambiguous moral stigma to the idea of teen sex, especially if it’s not something you actually believe. If religion isn’t a driving force behind your hopes for abstinence, it’s best to stick to the facts.

Encourage Him to Pursue Long-Term Goals
A teenager that’s focused on a long-term goal, like finishing college or excelling in an area in which he’s particularly talented, may be more determined to avoid potential stumbling blocks along the road to the success he dreams of. Making sure that you encourage your teenager’s ambitions and that you explain how easily they could be derailed by an unplanned pregnancy or an incurable sexually transmitted disease can put a spin on abstinence that he understands.

Limit Screen Time, But Don’t Be Afraid to Use Entertainment as a Talking Point
Sex sells, a fact that’s readily apparent any time you switch on the television. While limiting screen time is a wise choice for a variety of reasons, you should realize that you simply can’t shield your teenager from allusions to sexual activity on television, in music or on the Internet. Rather than trying to block all references to sexuality, you should use them as talking points. Remember that talking about abstinence is an ongoing dialogue, not a one-time discussion. Topical conversations about the things that your teen sees on television are another effective way of applying these important principals to his real life in a way that makes sense to him.

Consider the Effects of Substance Use
Teenagers aren’t renowned for their impulse control and drinking or drug use can cause their inhibitions to drop even further. Understanding the causal link between substance use and sexual activity is essential for parents because your teenager will almost certainly find himself in the position of being offered drugs or alcohol at some point in his high school career. Making sure that your stance on experimentation with controlled substances is clear and that your teenager understands just how quickly a single mistake can ruin a promising life is important.

Have Frank Discussions About the Ramifications of Teen Pregnancy
The abstract notion of being saddled with an infant before graduation is a scary one to teenagers, but it’s still not a concept that fully sinks in most of the time. Teenagers may understand that sex can lead to pregnancy, but they still tend to believe that it will never happen to them. Girls may even believe that teen pregnancy isn’t so devastating, and they may believe that they have the necessary tools to parent. Making sure that your children absolutely understand how devastating an unexpected pregnancy would be is essential, as it may be the one lesson they hold on to when they’re confronted with temptation.

While it’s important to talk to your teens about abstinence and maintaining sexual purity, it’s also important that you foster a sense of openness and trust in your relationship with them.
A teen that’s terrified of your reaction to an impulsive mistake or even an informed decision regarding his sexual activity isn’t likely to discuss the matter with you at all, leaving you firmly in the dark. Make sure that your child knows that you strongly encourage abstinence, but that you’re there to listen to him and to help him through difficult situations even if he doesn’t live up to those expectations.

Source: Babysitting Jobs

The Consequences of Teens and Sexting

To sext or not to sext?
 
For the reported one out of every six kids who have received a “friend’s” naked picture online and been asked to return the favor, there is pressure to participate. No longer categorized as a trend, sexting is an epidemic – an epidemic that now has a smart answer. The newly launched Send This Instead app gives a novel and witty way to say “No!” to the request for an intimate image.

The Send This Instead app meets kids where they’re at without taking a demeaning or authoritative approach. We’ve tried the scare tactics, embarrassment, and even punishment and now it’s time to step back and give them tools. When kids feel pressured to send intimate photos or share inappropriate content they can open their Send This Instead app and, well, send something else instead!

Humor can diffuse difficult situations, especially online. Staring at that blank conversation box can seem daunting when you don’t know how to respond or feel obligated to do something that you’re not comfortable with.

Sexting is dangerous, socially, emotionally and legally. The Send This Instead app gives young persons an alternative, accessible, and effective method to say no.


Created by members of the Ontario Provincial Police, Child Sexual Exploitation Unit in Ontario, Canada, the free app gives an edgy and funny alternative to sexting. Understanding the social pressures to sext, Inspector Scott Naylor, manager of unit, says, “Until now, anti-sexting campaigns have focused on warning kids about the dangers of sending explicit pictures of themselves, but it isn’t working, we need a new strategy.”

Taking the idea to comedians, graphic artists and musicians who could bring the novelty of the app to a broader audience, the members dug in. As a result, the Send This Instead app contains digital posters of humorous and sarcastic retorts that users can send instead of nude photos. Combined with entertaining graphics, funny and pointed messages include, “Sorry, just in the middle of something…Can I reject you later?” and “Save the bandwidth….Download a life,” among many others.

The free Send This Instead app also offers teen education called “Life Bytes” on how to deal with issues surrounding sexting. The app provides links to organizations like NeedHelpNow.ca, a website and program maintained by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection which helps kids get nude sexting photos off of the Internet. It also links to abuse pages for social media and IM platforms as well as to country-specific agencies to report people asking for nude images.
The Send This Instead website  www.sendthisinstead.com offers free media and presentation pieces for anyone reaching out to teens in a live setting, such as classrooms and community groups. The app can be used in tandem with the presentations.

Information:
The Send This Instead app is available in the Apple App Store as well as Google Play Store. To download click on the following links:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sendthis_android.sendthis_android
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/send-this-instead/id895484246?ls=1&mt=8

Online Gaming and Safety Measures to Keep Teens Safe

Summertime is more screen time.

When you look in your living room, are your teens and tweens immersed in a video game on a console, computer, or cellphone? Chances are, the games they’re playing have online connectivity. Gartner reports that a large portion of the $111 billion video game market consists of online games. 38 percent of minors enjoy video gaming as a hobby, according to the Entertainment Software Association, and there’s plenty of benefits to encouraging them to play online enabled games. They provide your kids with entertainment, socialization, computer skill development, and brain stimulating activities. Unfortunately, these socialization elements also open your tweens and teens up to certain risks and dangers, such as becoming a victim of hacking or social engineering. Knowing how to protect your tweens and teens and developing their own risk- aware skills is an essential part of safe online gaming.

Checking Appropriate Content

Online games span many genres, from a hidden object game by iWin to MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft. Pay close attention to the rating and types of content and concepts presented in the game your teens and pre-teens are playing. Consider playing along with your children to see exactly what information your kids are picking up, as well as steering them to age appropriate games if the content is not suitable for them. The Entertainment Software Rating Board handles video game ratings, starting at EC for early childhood and going up to AO for adults only.

Checking for Chat Rooms

Many online games have chat rooms or messaging functions to provide social interaction with other gamers. Online games with parental controls allow you to filter out bad language, block private messages, and control whether your child gets chat room capability or not. This is another way of ensuring your kids aren’t exposed to inappropriate content. Some games also allow you to mute specific players if a particular individual is harassing your child.

Time Monitoring

The allure of online gaming makes it easy for your children to spend many hours playing all of the games at their disposal. Track the amount of time that they play through parental monitoring software. Some games, such as World of Warcraft, allow you to prevent an account from being played past a daily or weekly amount, or restricting the time of day that the child can log in. This helps you keep your kids happy with their favorite activities while not allowing it to take up all of their free time.

Avoiding Hackers

Online gaming portals provide hundreds of games through a single website. Some of these games play directly in the browser, while others are downloaded and installed on your computer. Keep the computer anti-virus running to avoid downloads and browser plugins with viruses and trojans attached. Read through gaming portal reviews to find legitimate sites, or check gaming magazines and blogs for this information. Check for https encryption when your child logs into the site, and handle downloadable game installations yourself to stop companion software, such as toolbars, from getting installed.

Check Game Emails

Some online game services send out emails informing players of new developments, specials, and updates. Phishers take advantage of this by posing as official game representatives and tricking users into providing account information. Monitor the email address your child used to sign up with a service, and screen any emails for phishing attempts.

Contributor: James Stewart

Texting and Teens

OMG, did you know that kids are now thinking in acronyms? 

Do our kids even know what an acronym is? Kids today are so busy tweeting with limited characters or texting little bursts of information that they don’t want to use big words. Seriously, if you don’t use the words you learn they will never become a part of your vocabulary. The schools are trying to teach vocabulary, but kids just aren’t using it.

Check out 10 ways texting is ruining the vocabulary of our kids.

1. Takes too long to text big words: Even if your kid knows big words there is a chance that his friends won’t and frankly it just takes too long to type in a big word when a smaller one will communicate the same thing.
2. Many acronyms already exist that are easier: When something is funny do they text, that is hilarious! Nope, they text… lol or if it’s really funny they text, rofl. These have become standard acronyms on texting so everyone uses them so that they will be understood by their friends.
3. Adults don’t understand the acronyms: If you actually text using real words then your folks could go back and read your texts. What if you texted something you don’t want your parents to know. Like WTPT, where’s the party tonight? If they stick to these acronyms most adults won’t know what they are saying and they can avoid getting into trouble.
4. Short and sweet: Many times the kids will misspell words so that they can save characters. Spelling and vocabulary go hand in hand. ( If U no wat I mean) Really kids would just write KWIM? (Know what I mean), but they will shorten other sentences and drop punctuation and everything else.
5. Dictionaries are changing: In their defense, Dictionaries are there to tell us what a word means and when certain “words” are used enough then they end up in the Dictionary. Some of us purists think that only words should be in the dictionary and not abbreviations or acronyms. When a child goes to look up a word in a dictionary the words we grew up with will have changed. Like Rachael Ray made up EVOO for Extra Virgin Olive Oil and it’s made it into the dictionary. Although, anymore most people don’t even own a dictionary, they look it up online.
6. Some teachers are bowing under the pressure: Teachers are even allowing kids to write their term papers in text speak. Now where is the common sense in that? If you don’t even have to know your words or how to spell them when writing a school paper then what is this world coming to? Don’t do it teachers, don’t cave!
7. Face to face communication is the exception and not the rule: You might think that kids only use text-speak while texting and that when they are talking to each other they use their vocabulary. Well, if you think that you would be wrong. Not only are teens starting to speak their text speak abbreviations, but texting is making face-to-face communication more difficult for kids. They would rather hide behind their phones than to speak to someone in person.
8. Texting and e-mails have done away with letter writing: Another time when we use our vocabularies is when we write letters to each other. We would write out our thoughts in long hand. When was the last time you received a letter in the mail? People just don’t do it anymore. It’s all about the e-mails and texting now and social media. Social media sources may keep us in touch with people we went to high school with, but do we really care?
9. Creating a new language: Instead of working on developing their own language they are busy learning and using another language. Or I guess you could call it a different dialect of the same language. Because those of us who speak English can figure out text-speak if we really try. Most of it is intuitive; kids continue to strive to create new abbreviations instead of learning how to converse with words in the English language.
10. Spending more time on texting their friends than doing their homework: This final reason is one that is more an effect of time management than the actual use of texting. Kids spend so much time texting to their friends that they aren’t spending enough time on their homework. This may affect their vocabulary because they need to do the work. Make sure kids know how to use the English language before allowing them to text.

Internet Addiction and Teens

Summer time can mean more screen-time.

One of the most common concerns from parents of teens, behind drug use, is Internet addiction.
 
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a college campus or schools that don’t have Internet.

College students and teens use the Internet for research, communication, and other educational activities.

Of course, students also use the Internet for social media, news, and even online gambling, activities that can be fun and even enriching, but when overused, become a real problem.

Some college students suffer from Internet addiction, unable to step away from the computer or put down mobile devices even for a day. Eighty-four percent of college counselors agree that Internet Addiction Disorder is legitimate, but at the same time, 93% of them have not been fully trained to diagnose Internet addiction, and 94% have insufficient training for Internet addiction treatment. The result? Falling grades, physical problems, and even clinical addiction.

Internet addiction is a real problem for college students and teens today, and here are several trends that are worrisome.

1. Students have feelings similar to drug and alcohol addiction: Two hundred students were asked to abstain from all media for 24 hours, and were then asked to blog about their experiences. The words the students used to describe their feelings during the restriction period were typically the same words associated with a substance abuse addiction: “withdrawal, frantically craving, very anxious, antsy, miserable, jittery, crazy.” It seems that these students are addicted to media, particularly in its online form. This is disturbing, but not surprising, as studies have already shown that Google can actually change your brain.

2. College students are especially susceptible to Internet Behavior Dependence:A college student case study revealed that college students are a “population of special concern” when it comes to Internet addiction, and they are disproportionately vulnerable due to psychological and environmental factors in their lives. When faced with an Internet addiction, college students have a hard time forming their identity and building intimate relationships. Online, students can “develop relationships devoid of the anxiety found in face-to-face relationships,” and they “can take on any persona they desire, without fear of judgment on appearance or personal mannerism, and can avoid racial and gender prejudice.” This type of adaptive behavior tends to diminish the social capacity of college students, leaving them unprepared for the development of real world relationships.

3. Online poker is prevalent on college campusesOnline poker joins two addictions together: gambling and online interaction, so its use on college campuses is especially worrisome. The University of Pennsylvania predicts that over 20% of college students play online poker at least once a month, and you can typically see lots of students playing online poker on a college campus. Although it can be a fun game, and many students may be able to maintain healthy lives while enjoying playing online poker, some simply can’t. At the University of Pennsylvania, researchers noted that among college gamblers that played weekly, over half of them had a serious problem with the habit. In some cases, students fail out of classes or gamble their tuition away, even turning to crime to pay debts created by online poker.

4. Students can’t go 24 hours without the Internet:When 1,000 college students took part in an international study on electronic media, they were asked to go without media for 24 hours. But many students in the study were not up to the challenge. A majority of students did not actually go without media for 24 hours, giving in and checking in with their phones or email. Students confessed, “I sat in my bed and stared blankly. I had nothing to do,” and “Media is my drug; without it I was lost. How could I survive 24 hours without it?” The study revealed a physical dependency on media, especially Facebook and mobile phones. Students recognized that typing the address for their favorite sites had become muscle memory: “It was amazing to me though how easily programmed my fingers were to instantly start typing “f-a-c-e” in the search bar. It’s now muscle memory, or instinctual, to log into Facebook as the first step of Internet browsing.” Other students recognized physical signs of withdrawal, sharing that “I would feel irritable, tense, restless and anxious when I could not use my mobile phone. When I couldn’t communicate with my friends, I felt so lonely, as if I was in a small cage in a solitary island.”

5. Students are surfing, not studying: Students who spend a lot of time online are likely to neglect their studies. In many cases, students who performed well in school before developing an Internet addiction allowed their grades to crash, only then realizing the impact of Internet dependency. Counselors across the US have identified the problems of excessive Internet use, including: lack of sleep and excess fatigue, declining grades, less investment in relationships with a boyfriend or girlfriend, withdrawal from all campus social activities and events, general apathy, edginess, or irritability when off-line, and rationalizing that what they learn on the Internet is superior to their classes. Students may not realize the problem until serious trouble happens: “They flunk out of college. Their real-life girlfriend breaks up with them because all they ever want to do is play on the Net. Their parents explode when they find out their huge investment in their child’s college education is going to support all-night Internet sessions.” By then, it may be too late to recover the damage.

6. The Internet is everywhere: Ninety-eight percent of students own a digital device. This prevalence throws gasoline on a spark: students who are already susceptible to Internet addiction have access online in computer labs, their dorm, and other places around campus, and on top of that, they have the Internet in their pocket at all times. Knowing this, it’s not surprising to find out that 38% of students say they can’t go more than 10 minutes without using a digital device, contributing to an ever-present existence of the Internet on campus.

7. Internet use can physically change your brain: In a study of Chinese college students who were online for 10 hours a day, six days a week, morphological changes in the structure of their brains were noted. Scientists found reductions in the size of the “dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area and parts of the cerebellum as high as 10-20%.” Although at the same time, there was an increase in the “density of the right parahippocampal gyrus and a spot called the left posterior limb of the internal capsule.” These changes happen to the detriment of short term memory and decision-making abilities.

8. Many students need intervention and treatment for their addiction, and it can lead to depression: We might joke about “Crackberries,” but for some, the Internet is truly a significant concern. A study published in BMC Medicine indicated that 4% of the students who participated in their survey met the criteria for having a problem with online addiction. But perhaps the more disturbing fact from this study is that there is a “significant association between pathological Internet use and depression in college students,” putting a population that is already at risk for mental instability in a precarious position.

9. Cyberbullies go to college, too:Although most of the news on cyberbullying focuses on adolescents, the fact is that cyberbullies exist on the college campus as well. It’s not surprising, considering how much time students spend online, and how much impact a college student’s online presence can have. In fact, a University of New Hampshire study reported that one in 10 students was abused online. College students have been the target of sexually violent rants, and one professor at BU had to persuade Facebook to remove his page, which he did not set up himself. Researchers believe that students are especially vulnerable to cyberstalking because “they live in a relatively closed community where class schedules, phones, and e-mails are easy to find.” And sites like Rate My Professors may be helpful for students choosing classes, but some comments may be hurtful for faculty members. Thierry Guedj, adjunct professor of psychology at Metropolitan College reports, “It really hurts faculty members badly when they read these things about themselves online. People have become quite depressed about it.”

10. Tech conditions can be dangerous to your health: College Candy’s list of tech conditions that can be dangerous to your health seems to be written as a joke, citing “Blackberry Neck,” and “Glazey Dazey Lazy Eye,” but these conditions really can be a problem. Using the Internet too much can lead to a sedentary lifestyle, a decline in physical fitness, and as a result, weight gain. Heavy users report carpal tunnel syndrome, eye strain, and headaches. Sleep disturbances can also stem from Internet addiction, as Internet use may lead to later bedtimes and less restful sleep. Additionally, researchers believe that the light from computer screens may affect circadian rhythms, creating a risk factor for insomnia.