The internet has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. It is a way to connect with friends and family who live far away, and it allows you to contact job opportunities or spread awareness. On the other hand, the internet encourages illegal activities, online abuse, and body shaming. People find it easier to bully as they hide behind a screen which makes them meaner and cruder in situations when they would have been patient and held their tongues. The internet has physically changed the way that people think and process information. To help you understand the ways that the internet can change the way your brain works for the better and how it can change it for the worse.

Social Media’s Rapid Influence on Body Image

Since the rise of the internet, there have been drastic changes in how people define a “good body.” This change has majorly affected women and has lead to a major increase in eating disorders including anorexia and bulimia. When it comes to body image, there are few mental changes that social media has had a good effect on. Some people may argue that the emphasis on body image has helped people to see the benefits of exercise and healthy eating, but even those changes have led to more unhealthy obsessions with health. Since social media broadcasts the importance of being fit, there has been a mental switch that causes people to tell themselves that it is not okay to be fat, round, or short. People get bullied for every part of their body, and it has led to confidence issues and suicides.  

Impact on Getting Information

It’s no secret that the way that we get information has changed. If we rewind just 20 years, the internet has new. People had an occasional computer in their home but no way to access the internet on the go. To get to one place to another, people had to use maps and memory instead of of a smartphone. With the influx of devices that allow easy access to the internet, it helped people to become accustomed to finding the information that they need quickly. This programmed people to start expected information quickly. It has helped companies grow and small businesses to gain their footing in the world. Through services like link building, it allows people to have their businesses compete with the larger businesses when it comes to having their sites appear in the top results on Google or Bing. It has also helped education to progress faster since information can be easily shared. Whether the student is in high school, college, or learning a subject on their own, the internet allows them to find the subjects with ease. There are sites like JSTOR that allow access to scholarly articles and studies that help people to expand their learning faster without having to go to a library or physical database. This helped people to think faster and more logically.

Benefits and Disadvantages for Advertising

Since having the internet, there have been so many changes to advertising that have completely changed the way that the brain processes external information. Companies have found ways to advertise to specific groups that would be most interested in their products. Social media platforms allow companies to specify which group of people will see the ad. This has helped people to enjoy the ads that they watch more and has programmed people to expect ads that relate to them in some way or form. The disadvantage is that it has made people lower their attention spans.

Conclusion

Social media and the internet have made great changes to society and have also been the cause of disadvantages. It’s important to recognize both the advantages and the disadvantages of the internet to that you’ll know how to better deal with the negatives of the internet. This will help you to take advantage of the good aspects and to neglect the things that could cause body image problems or the loss of self-confidence.