Abstract
The advent of the internet has changed the academic culture of students drastically. It has shaped into a new area filled with both liabilities and benefits. The emergence of a new, relatively comfortable lifestyle has led to a decline in health and time priorities among people.
The need for better time management is accurate and utterly needed, especially for the age group of young adult students.
Introduction
Today, the Internet and social media significantly shape most individuals’ life choices and decisions. Regardless of financial stability or age, the Internet is rapidly becoming a significant part of human society.
The young adults are the most affected by it, either positively or negatively. As anyone would agree, certain non-academic factors play a significant role in determining the score of a student in his academic life. These factors, such as time management, low stress, and anxiety, are essential for academic success.
Many students of different age groups find it challenging to manage their studies and their social and personal lives, leading to stress, poor time schedules, and disturbed sleep cycles. One of the reasons for that being true is the Internet.
The rapid advent and spread of the Internet have also led to an increasing graph of inactivity among children and young adults. Thus, harming their physical well-being as well.
Describing the usage of the Internet among Students and Young Adults
The transition of a student entering adulthood brings out many changes in their lifestyle. With new responsibilities and tasks at hand, a student must manage many things and maintain good academic performance. The new responsibilities sometimes even come without the complete guidance of another adult related to them. Students who have moved out from their hometowns and families face this problem with greater intensity since they must manage the tasks independently.
Still, expecting and believing students to live internet-free lives would be ridiculous. It is essential to maintain a healthy social life in today’s culture [1]. The internet is also an excellent resource for researching and finding study materials.
Similarly, while social media connects people, its excessive usage only strengthens the belief of loneliness and the fear of being left out, which teens already suffer from. The image of perfection, aesthetics, and success worsens the confusion in a student’s mind. The distraction it provides one with can only be tackled through sheer focus and determination.
Moreover, excessive internet and social media usage at night has resulted in sleep deprivation, insomnia, and late bedtimes, thus disturbing the sleep schedule. Exhaustion during the next day follows. That is another good reason why one might need to perfect their time management skills.
Adverse Results of Internet Usage on Young Adults’ Lifestyle
The years of late teens and young adulthood are when it is time for exploration in specific fields, to know more about career prospects, to discover and develop new skills, and to enhance the ones one already possesses.
The assignments and projects students must complete within a specified deadline are pretty stressful, and in the long term, constant stress might adversely harm the student’s health. To tackle this problem, other than the apparent judicious use of digital devices, excellent time management skills are required. For example, excessive television watching leads to a lazy lifestyle in children and gets them to not engage in recreational sports [2].
The acts that required physical interaction can now be done with the Internet, thus limiting the need and access of the people to the outside world. While entertainment previously was something done to ward off exhaustion and overworking, it has become many’s favorite pastime. People spend most of their leisure hours watching shows on the Internet.
The second leading cause of death among fifteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds, suicide, is often the result of depression and anxiety. They both are closely related to Internet Addiction [3].
Several trends highlight how the Internet is a significant part of their lives. It is affecting the mental health of young adults. In some cases, the issue of Internet Addiction has been compared to the compulsive behaviors of gambling addiction, too.
Dealing with these adverse effects, hence, takes up much of the energy and effort of the student, worsening not just their academic or social performance but their overall health.
Importance of Time Management
It is evident that good student time management leads to better academic results and achievements. This helps significantly in reducing stress and anxiety in them [3].
Poor time management has specific chain effects, too. It will lead to the student developing resentment towards the end of their course over its duration, which is psychologically not beneficial for them. It may, in turn, even affect their professional career paths. Many elements in today’s era affect a person’s utilization of time. One might need to be aware of those elements and work towards improving them to utilize the available time.
These time-saving techniques and methods can help a great deal in reducing the anxiety of an individual and help him earn much-needed psychological achievements about themselves [4]. Nevertheless, it may not do much good while dealing with disorders like depression.
The feeling of losing, being unproductive, and disorganizing only worsens the situation. Ultimately, it might make one fall even more behind [5].
While we fail to perform a specific task, this feeling of guilt about ourselves is what good time management skills would prevent. Especially for students, undergrads, and pass-outs from school, this is a vulnerable time to develop oneself and grow into a healthy individual. Therefore, these sentiments are what one should avoid.
Conclusion-
While it is undeniable that the advent of the internet has helped a great deal in finding out about potential career options, research, and education, its judicious use is what everyone should aim for since it would not be plausible, nor would it make sense, to cut off internet usage from one’s life completely.
With too many distractions nowadays, a student’s lifestyle must be one of focus and willpower to complete tasks and meet deadlines on time. It is the need of the hour to cut off habits that act as obstacles and instead adopt ones that help one grow and learn. It is one of the ways through which one can boost their non-academic factor’s influence in their academic life.
Feedants is a platform where one can connect with people trying to learn the same level of skills and those who are experts in them. For example, students and working corporate professionals can share their expertise and experience regarding time management and digital detoxing.
With professionals and novices interacting with one another with the sole goal of learning and improving, progress is unavoidable.
References
- Author links open overlay panel Linda A. Jackson et al., “A longitudinal study of the effects of internet use and videogame playing on academic performance and the roles of gender, race, and income in these relationships,” Computers in Human Behavior, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074756321000244X?via%3Dihub (accessed Sep. 1, 2023).
- Author links open overlay panelLigang Wang a b et al., “The effect of internet use on adolescents’ lifestyles: A national survey,” Computers in Human Behavior, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563212000994 (accessed Sep. 1, 2023).
- S. Hökby1 et al., “Are mental health effects of internet use attributable to the web-based content or perceived consequences of usage? A longitudinal study of European adolescents,” JMIR Mental Health, https://mental.jmir.org/2016/3/e31 (accessed Aug. 30, 2023).
- R. V. Adams and E. Blair, “Impact of time management behaviors on undergraduate engineering students’ performance,” SAGE Open, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 215824401882450, 2019. doi:10.1177/2158244018824506
- V. P. Jackson, “Time Management: A realistic approach,” Journal of the American College of Radiology, vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 434–436, 2009. doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2008.11.018
