Internet's Social Impact: Benefits Outweigh the Negatives

Introduction: Weighing the Internet's Social Effects

Anyone who uses a cellphone to quickly check a message while standing in line at the grocery store is likely to become aware of the intense hostility directed toward Internet technology. The Internet has been accused of making people rude and less civil — both in real life and online — of negatively influencing elections, and even of artificially damaging the human brain by reducing the natural human attention span. Very few technologies, admittedly, have no negative effects. Even early industrialization had negative effects on the lives of people who wove by hand for a living. But while the Internet has clearly had some negative effects, these should not outweigh the positive impact it has had upon many lives, including connecting people who would otherwise have no social outlet and providing a window onto the world that intellectually curious people would not otherwise be able to access.

Turkle on Teen Identity and Digital Tethering

Sherry Turkle's essay "Growing Up Tethered," from her book Alone Together, is designed to illustrate the irony of living in the digital age. Turkle argues that although it might seem as if teens today are more unfettered than ever before, given that they can easily travel in time and space through their digital access, they in fact constantly feel the need to be tethered to their cellphones. If they miss a text or a Snap, they feel hopelessly out of the loop. The phenomenon of texting while driving, Turkle suggests, is not due to teenage recklessness but to a fear of being left out.

The idea that teenage independence is enhanced by surfing the web is also counteracted by the fact that technology enables parents to keep tabs on their children at all times. Even the expense of a cellphone plan and the device itself can be viewed as binding children more tightly to their parents. Parents can also withhold access if a child misbehaves, and for many adolescents, the prospect of being disconnected from friends online is a greater threat than the pleasures any social event could bring. This is part of a larger trend toward an other-directed rather than an inner-directed self, in Turkle's view. A lack of autonomy, she argues, is fostered by the presence of continual contact with friends and family.

Online Identity, Authenticity, and Adolescent Self-Expression

Turkle's perspective, however, assumes that teens use the Internet only to validate their current views and contact existing friends. What about LGBT+ teens who may live in rural, isolated communities with no access to positive role models? Or teens who hold political or social views that differ from those of their communities? The Internet also allows teens to read books and access information that might have been withheld from them by parents in previous eras. Even if some teens use their phones to browse trivial content, others may use the same technology to learn about evolving identity categories they might not otherwise have encountered — from girls who do extreme sports to transgender teens finding community and language for their experiences.

Turkle also argues that the Internet allows teens to construct false personas — avatars and social media profiles that stand in for the real, developing self. But this is not so different from the personas constructed through clothing and membership in specific cliques, which have always been part of adolescence. Online personas can, in fact, be changed more easily than identities created in real life during high school. Teens who are introverted and socially shy can also find new outlets online. A teen who is afraid to speak aloud in class for fear of being mocked may feel empowered and find a new source of self-esteem by starting a book blog about her favorite novels.

Conclusion: Critical Literacy and the Balance of Benefits

Of course, the Internet has generated some negative social effects. But although quickly disseminated information may carry risks, it also carries the benefit of spreading corrective information equally fast. Additionally, it has enabled voices once often unheard — including those of gay, feminist, and transgender activists — to play a vital part in cultural discourse from which they were previously excluded. No technology, including the rise of mass media itself or even the printed book, is without social costs. But the benefits of the Internet outweigh its negatives, and those very benefits can be marshaled to counteract the harms.

Works Cited

Andrews, Lori. "George Orwell… Meet Mark Zuckerberg."

Boyd, Dana. "Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social Divisions?"

Seife, Charles. "The Loneliness of the Interconnected," 298–303. Web. 13 Jul 2018.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011.