The good, the bad or the Internet

АННОТАЦИЯ

Тема проекта:

«Интернет: за и против»

Роль интернета в жизни современного человека сложно переоценить. Интернетом в наше время пользуются более 30 % населения Земли, а это немного немало около 1,500,000,000 человек. И с каждым днем число пользователей Интернетом растет. Задумывается ли человек, который часами сидит в Интернете: пользу или вред наносит ему с первого взгляда безобидная компьютерная сеть?

Таким вопросом задались

авторы проекта, учащиеся 8 класса  ГБОУ СОШ № 172  

Олонцев Александр Александрович  и Коренева Елизавета Олеговна

а также

руководитель проекта Чимидова Юлия Захаровна, учитель английского языка.

Были поставлены следующие цели:

1)        проследить влияние Всемирной глобальной сети Интернет на мировоззрение подростков;

2)        раскрыть позитивные и негативные стороны влияния Интернета на подрастающее поколение;

В ходе работы на теоретическом этапе авторы изучили историю возникновения интернета, его положительные и отрицательные черты на подрастающее поколение.

Далее, методом анкетирования 200 учащихся с 5 по 11 класс выявлены наиболее популярные социальные сети, сайты, поисковые системы

В итоге авторы проекта смогли доказать, что интернет имеет огромное влияние на мировоззрение подрастающего поколения.

 Annotation

‘The good, the bad and the Internet’

‘The role of the Internet in modern life is hard to overestimate. The Internet today is used by more than 30% of the population of the Earth, and it is about 1,500,000,000 people. And every day the number of the Internet users is growing rapidly. Has the person who is sitting for hours on the Internet ever thought about some good and bad aspects of how this medium influences us, what impacts it has on our social behaviour and what the future will look like.’ wondered

Olontsev Alexander and Elizabeth Koreneva

8th grade students of the Moscow state school № 172, and started their research under supervision of their English teacher, Yuliya Chimidova

They set the following goals:

1.        to find out the impact of the Internet on the teenagers’ world outlook,    

2.        to cover positive and negative  sides of the Internet’s influence  on rising generation.

The authors started their work on the project by studying the origin of theories of motivation and how they transformed as the time passed. They also looked into the existing classification of the motivational factors and created a questionnaire based on them.

Having conducted the survey among the students of 5th  -11th grades with the total number of respondents equalling 200 people, they found out the most popular social networks, sites and searching systems

In the end  the authors of the project could prove the influence of the Internet on the teenagers’ world outlook.

Contents.

1. Introduction

 It goes without saying that almost everyone enjoys the invention of the Internet. We cannot but admit that the Internet is the greatest invention in the 20th century. In fact, today our global communication is functioning based on the Internet as it transmits all kinds of information. Certainly, teenagers compose a major group of the Internet users as they research for papers, chat with friends, read e-mails, and so on. It appears to us that the Internet has become so convenient to us that we can barely live without it; however, we might want to examine its pros and cons to the younger generation.

The goals of our project:

1. to find out the impact of the Internet on the teenagers’ world outlook,    
2. to cover positive and negative  sides of the Internet’s influence  on rising generation. 

We suppose that in nowadays it’s hardly possible to find someone who has never heard about the advantages and opportunities offered to modern people by the Internet, the worldwide network of public computers that allows its users to exchange information. Within the last two decades, the Internet became one of the most popular and demanded technological innovations which are currently used by billions of people throughout the world. It is impossible to deny the fact that the Internet has had a huge impact on our life, but should its influence be considered as something more positive than negative, or vice versa? To find an answer on that question, let’s take a closer look at the role of the Internet in modern life.

Internet has transformed our lives and the way we communicate, how we learn, how we work and spend free time, in essence – it has more or less changed every aspect of human society one can think of. The significance of the Internet and information technology (IT) in both business and private field has grown considerably in the last years, with exponential growth of Internet users and services offered.

II. What is the Internet?

The Internet is a worldwide collection of computer networks, cooperating with each other to exchange data using a common software standard. Through telephone wires and satellite links, Internet users can share information in a variety of forms. The size, scope and design of the Internet allow users to:

1. connect easily through ordinary personal computers and local phone numbers;
2. exchange electronic mail (E-mail) with friends and colleagues with accounts on the Internet;
3. post information for others to access, and update it frequently;
4. access multimedia information that includes sound, photographic images and even video;  
5. access diverse perspectives from around the world.

In addition to text documents, the Internet makes available graphics files (digitized photographs and artwork), and even files that contain digitized sound and video. Through the Internet, you can download software, participate in interactive forums where users post and respond to public messages, and even join "chats," in which you and other users type (and, in some cases, speak) messages that are received by the chat participants instantly.

Accessing the Internet

People use an internet browser to access web pages that are available across the internet. Internet browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, and others.

Web pages are created in a marked up form of text file called HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language). The markup within the text indicates document structure showing where paragraphs begin and end, what items are in a list, headers, tables and other document structure.

When people are browsing of surfing the internet, they usually go from place to place by clicking on links. These links are locations for specific pages and indicate the three things:

1. Protocol being used such as http or ftp
2. The domain that the web page is found on. This will point to a specific organization's or company's web server.
3. The location of the page on the server including the directory path and file name.

An example link is http://www.comptechdoc.org/basics/bastutorial/osintro.html"  In this case http is the protocol being used, the comptechdoc.org domain indicates where the organization's web server is, and the "/basics/bastutorial/osintro.html" part of the string indicates the folders the file is in and the name of the file.

These links are sometimes called hyperlinks or URLs (Uniform Resource Locators)

The History of the Internet

Many people think that the Internet is a recent innovation, when in fact the essence of it has been around for over a quarter century. The Internet began as ARPAnet (the Advanced Research Projects Agency), a U.S. Department of Defense project to create a nationwide computer network that would continue to function even if a large portion of it were destroyed in a nuclear war or natural disaster.

During the next two decades, the network that evolved was used primarily by academic institutions, scientists and the government for research and communications. The appeal of the Internet to these bodies was obvious, as it allowed disparate institutions to connect to each others' computing systems and databases, as well as share data via E-mail.

The nature of the Internet changed abruptly in 1992, when the U.S. government began pulling out of network management, and commercial entities offered Internet access to the general public for the first time. This change in focus marked the beginning of the Internet's astonishing expansion.

According to a survey conducted by CommerceNet and Nielsen Media Research in early 1997, nearly one out of every four Americans over the age of 16 is an Internet user. And the number of users worldwide is believed to be well into the tens of millions. Other statistics are equally startling:

1. A CNN report stated that Internet traffic in 1996 was 25 times what it was just two years earlier.
2. The market research group IntelliQuest pegged the number of Internet users in the U.S. in late 1996 at 47 million - a 34 percent increase over the first quarter of that year.
3. According to IBM, 146 countries currently have at least some level of Internet access.
4. The technology research firm IDG estimates that by century's end, one billion people worldwide will have access to personal computers—more than doubling the computer-savvy population of 1996.

The Internet explosion coincides with the advent of increasingly powerful yet reasonably priced personal computers with easy-to-use graphical operating systems. The result has been an attraction of recent computer "converts" to the network, and new possibilities for exploiting a wealth of multimedia  capabilities.

                                        The aims of using the Internet

For a layman, Internet is nothing but a collection of websites. And there are innumerable websites that serve a variety of purposes. There are news websites, social networking websites, websites that provide information and websites of various businesses and organizations. These websites are updated frequently to provide information to the user. You can find everything of anything on the web just by browsing through a few websites. You can also use emails, blogs, IM chat, social networking websites and communication software for sharing your information with the world. The Internet has made access to information cheaper and easier and this is its most common use in daily life.

1. to find necessary information;
2. to look up the news;
3. to look up the weather;
4. to pay bills;
5. on-line shopping;
6. education (finding study material, applying to some college or university);
7. business and advertising;
8. communication (exchanging electronic mail (E-mail) with friends, chatting, calling)
9. entertainment (watching  films,  listening to music; playing on-line games, downloading music. images and videos, reading books and etc.)

These were some of the chief common uses of the Internet in our every life.  It is a boon for us and has made our life easy by facilitating so many uses. But it is also prone to attacks of many kinds that threaten safety over the Internet. To protect the Internet from these attacks we should all use it carefully and also protect ourselves from various privacy intrusions. The Internet as a tool for communication will always remain its most powerful use. The array of uses of the Internet is vast and with the progress of technology new uses will get added to the list of uses continuously.

III. Impact of the Internet on the teenagers’ world outlook

Modern life and business has become easier and the world markets have shrunk thanks to the immense contribution of the internet technology to communication and information sharing. However this internet technology was not created overnight. In its initial stages of creation it facilitated communication within certain specific network stations through a central mainframe method. Eventually internet operations wherein multiple networks could be connected together were made possible. From here on internet service providers that were privately owned allowed for expansion and use of this technology and it has had a tremendous impact all over the world. The Internet not only allows for ease in communication through email but also ensures easy availability of information, images, and products among other things. Every day the internet continues to provide a new facility, something new that is immensely convenient and that makes life easier for many people. However this internet like any other technology is also like a Pandora’s Box and contains some unwanted elements or disadvantages.

Internet advantages

Faster Communication

The foremost target of Internet has always been speedy communication and it has excelled way beyond the expectations. Newer innovations are only going to make it faster and more reliable. Now, you can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world. For more personal and interactive communication, you can avail the facilities of chat services, video conferencing and so on. Besides, there are plenty of messenger services in offering. With the help of such services, it has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your thoughts and explore other cultures.

Information Resources

Information is probably the biggest advantage that Internet offers. Internet is a virtual treasure trove of information. Any kind of information on any topic under the sun is available on the Internet, in your home, at any hour of the day or night. It is much faster and easier to surf the net in search of information from all over the world than to travel to libraries in dozens of countries. The search engines like Google, Yahoo are at your service on the Internet. There is a huge amount of information available on the Internet for just about every subject known to man, ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support, the list is simply endless.
Students and children are among the top users who surf the Internet for research. Today, it is almost required that students should use the Internet for research or the purpose of gathering resources. Even teachers have started giving assignments that require extensive research on the Internet. Besides, you can have an access to latest researches in the field of medicine, technology and so on. Numerous web sites such as America's Doctor also allow you to talk to the doctors online. 

Entertainment

Entertainment is another popular raison d'être why many people prefer to surf the Internet. In fact, Internet has become quite successful in trapping the multifaceted entertainment industry. Downloading games or just surfing the celebrity websites are some of the uses people have discovered. Even celebrities are using Internet effectively for promotional campaigns. Besides, there are numerous games that can be downloaded from the Internet for free. The industry of online gaming has tasted dramatic and phenomenal attention by game lovers. 

Social Networking

One cannot imagine an online life without Facebook or Twitter (the most popular sites according to http://www.alexa.com/topsites ).  Social networking has become so popular amongst youth that it might one day replace physical networking. It has evolved as a great medium to connect with millions of people with similar interests. Apart from finding long-lost friends, you can also look for job, business opportunities on forums, communities etc. Besides, there are chat rooms where users can meet new and interesting people. Some of them may even end up finding their life partners. 

You can find 10 top sites in the world and in Russia in Appendix 1, 2.

Online Services

Internet has made life very convenient and the whole world now, seems to be on our doorsteps, or keystrokes. With numerous online services you can now perform all your transactions online without waiting for hours in the queues. You can book tickets for a movie, transfer funds, pay utility bills, taxes etc., right from your home. Some travel websites even plan an Itinerary as per your preferences and take care of airline tickets, hotel reservations etc. With the help of online services, all of these can be quite conveniently done from home.

On-line shopping

Shopping has also got a complete makeover thanks to the contribution of the internet. You have many websites selling a variety of products of products online and one just needs to select or bid for the desired product and entire financial transactions can be conducted through the internet. E commerce has got a facelift because of the internet and entire global business deals can be conducted over the internet. Transfer of money is also no longer a time consuming job and with just a click of a button you can easily transfer funds to anyplace you wish. Some of these services of course come at a price. Websites such as eBay allow you to even bid for homes, buy, sell or auction stuff online. So, on-line shopping makes it possible to search through catalogues to find exactly what you want at the best price, saving both time and money. 

Internet disadvantages

Theft of Personal Information

If you use the Internet for online banking, social networking or other services, you may risk a theft to your personal information such as name, address, credit card number etc. Unscrupulous people can access this information through unsecured connections or by planting software and then use your personal details for their benefit. Needless to say, this may land you in serious trouble. 

Spamming 

Spamming is the use of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages in bulk, which provide no purpose and needlessly obstruct the entire system. Such illegal activities can be very frustrating for you as it makes your Internet slower and less reliable.  In the popular eye, the most common form of spam is that delivered in e-mail as a form of commercial advertising. However, over the short history of electronic media, people have done things comparable to spamming for many purposes other than the commercial, and in many media other than e-mail.  

Virus Threat

Pornography

The vast majority of information on the Internet is entertaining, informative, and educational. Nevertheless, the Net can have a dark side. The Internet is seemingly unregulated at present. This means that unlike any other form of communications available today it is open to abuse and misuse in a myriad of ways.

Pornography is perhaps the biggest disadvantage of Internet. Internet allows you to access and download millions of pornographic photos, videos and other X-rated stuff. Such unrestricted access to porn can be detrimental for children and teenagers. It can even play a havoc in marital and social lives of adults.

Social Disconnect

Thanks to Internet, people now only meet on social networks. More and more people are getting engulfed in virtual world and drifting apart from their friends and family. Even children prefer to play online games rather than going out and mingling with other kids. This may hamper a healthy social development in children. 

Lack of Reading

With the surge in the use of the internet, the reading habit of the current generation is also on a steep decline. Previously, reading used to be a great source of amusement and knowledge but the internet, with its many distractions, has turned into a bane of leisurely reading.

Internet and children

What can the Internet do to children?

Obviously, people use the Internet because they need it. They need the quick access to information and knowledge. They need the convenience that the cyberspace offers. They can use email, Skype, and MSN to communicate with friends for free. Of course there are much more thing that they can do through the Internet.  All what they got from the Internet can be conclude in a word, convenience. And the convenience isn’t strong enough to surpass all the cons.

One of the bad thing about the internet is that people with ‘negative minds’ have so polluted the internet to the extent that the internet that is meant to be an efficient and effective way of disseminating information now become a medium to perpetrate all kinds of crime and fraud.

Porn and offensive contents have eaten deep in the internet. Children that are supposed to use the internet to learn and have fun have all resorted to using the internet to feed their mind negatively. Online dating and gambling has become most lucrative online business that people now go into. Children of 12years now date online and participate in all kinds of online gambling and betting.

The relevant authorities like Google have done their best to see they can rid offensive and mind corrupting content from the internet but cannot do much as they are only limited to exercise power over those that are connected to them one way or the other.

As it stands now, internet poses the greatest challenge to the upbringing of children. Parents are now at the verge of giving up to the struggle. A lot of parents have decided to leave everything to fate.

This is a bad approach as there are still much that parents can do to help bring up children that we all can be proud of as worthy ambassadors of our time and future generation.  

One more important impact of the Internet to the younger generation is that it has changed the way they communicate. Instead of hanging out with friends, teenagers had showed a trend that they would rather stay at home and chat with each other. However, it is not obviously good for health since sitting in front of their personal computer chatting throughout their free time is not the best way to release pressure. Furthermore, the Internet has become a major source of entertainment for the younger generation according to the development of flash and web-based games. Some youngsters are so addicted to it that they start perform poorly in other fields, such as academy and athletics.

What is also worth noticing is that there is no certain way that can restrict the information on the Internet. It is saying that youngsters may receive all kinds of information without the ability of judging it, though it may sometimes be beneficial. Some invisible hazards are inside the internet world.  

What is real, and what isn’t? It’s a new challenge that our younger generations are facing right now. Is it a bad thing, then? Some vote yes, but some says no. The yes people alleged that children are too young to distinguish the true stories from the false ones, and they’ll easily get the wrong information and the wrong concept of our society. On the other hand, there’s a theory called the “New Darwin’s Law of Internet Selection”. That is, children will learn from the true and fake news by themselves, and therefore, they will get smarter and smarter.   

Anyway, although people create the Internet, do they really dominate the Internet? Or are they actually dominated by the Internet while thinking that they dominate it. Twenty years ago, they had to go to the real store to buy what they want. On the way to the store, they might bump into a friend and had a nice chat. Indeed, they can save their time buying things through the Internet now, but people lose the chance to talk with people face to face. For what? What do we get? Only more time on the Internet!  

Children and social networks

Sociologists, scientists and parents are alarmed; children spend more and more time searching the Net because of social networking. They prefer  virtual communication (and virtual life) to  real communication. As a result values are changing, literacy and intellectual development are falling and all these facts influences children’s health.

The Russian experts conducted a large-scale study "Children Online",  which reveal some interesting facts and figures.  Here is the statistics showing how much time (hours per week) children spend in social networks and groups: 
           • 7-14 hours - 23% 
           • 14-21 hours - 57% 
           • more than 21 hours - 20% 

We surveyed the pupils of our school and found out how much time they spend in the Net.  200 students aged from 10 to 17 were asked. The most of the respondents spend more than 3 hour a day. (Appendix 3)

        The numbers are appalling. So much time is wasted. Every fifth child spends almost a day on social network.  The whole day is removed from real life. 

We also asked them about their favourite sites. The result was predictable.  (Appendix 4). Almost  everybody has a profile in one of the networks. But the most popular is Vkontalte.

As for the most popular searching system, the first comes Yandex. (Appendix 5)

And it’s not surprising. The Internet search engine Yandex.ru is nowadays the most popular website in Russia. More than 25 million people use this resource daily.

By the way, speaking about the most popular sites we should notice that Wikipedia, YouTube and Personal sites of our teachers are the most visited among our students. (Appendix 6)

Measures to mitigate the effects of the Internet on children

1. Educate them: educating  children on the negative effects of internet is the best way to safeguard your children from bad influences from the internet. Children learn best from their parents as God has made parents the first and best teachers of children. You can buy children educative programs that will bring out the negative effects of misuse of the internet by children.

1. Regulate their use of the internet: you and your children can reach a consensus on how the internet can be used. Threaten disconnecting from the internet if you ever discover that unsafe sites were accessed. Sit down with them to clearly define what the definition of unsafe site will include. Surprise them by mentioning the sites they visit each day. Just visit the history of the computer to find out what they have accessed. This will instill fear in them so that they will not have the mind of doing so in the future.
2. Working in collaboration with teachers: parents should have discussion with the teachers of their children. Tell the teachers the standard of internet access that can be given to the children.
3. Install software that restricts access to online content: One possible measure against children misuse of internet is to install softwares that prevent your computer to access websites with certain words that you need to specify in the software’s setting section. This is based on the assumption that your children only have access to the internet while at home and while in schools. Most schools now have all kinds of softwares preventing certain sites to be viewed. Internet and children is a critical issue that every parent should always take serious.

Internet addiction

Internet dependence is a term for excessive use of the Internet to the detriment of one’s physical, psychological, social, or vocational well-being. The majority of Americans and virtually all college students now use the Internet as a source of information and entertainment on at least an occasional basis. Most use it on a regular basis without becoming dependent upon it. However, for some, involvement on the Internet begins to have serious, negative consequences. When such consequences are minimized or ignored while Internet use increases, Internet dependence is occurring. Excessive Internet use may revolve around chat rooms, pornography; database searches; blogging; gambling; gaming; shopping; or any number of other online activities. As of 2005, it is estimated that 6% of users are Internet dependent.

Who Becomes Dependent on the Internet?

Anyone can become dependent on the internet. Like other compulsive activities, internet viewing distracts people from uncomfortable emotions. Internet dependence occurs for males and females as well as members of all races, ethnicities, religions, and cultures. However, certain factors contribute, both directly and indirectly, to a greater likelihood of dependence. Individuals who have a history of impulsive or compulsive behaviors, for example, may have more difficulty than others resisting various forms of gratification available online. Similarly, individuals who are shy or socially anxious may prefer the relative comfort and anonymity of cyber-relationships. Those with large blocks of unstructured time on their hands are more susceptible to Internet dependence than those whose free time is very structured and limited. For this last reason alone, many college students are particularly at risk for developing Internet dependence.

Signs of Internet Dependence

The following are common warning signs that a person is at risk for Internet dependence:

You are spending more and more time online.

You are spending less and less time with friends or family.

You are preoccupied with Internet activities and your next online session.

You feel restless or irritable when you are not online.

You have lied about your Internet usage or tried to conceal it from friends, family members, or others.

Your sleep or physical health is being affected by your Internet usage.

Your academic and/or work performance is being compromised by your   Internet usage.

You use the Internet as a way of avoiding those around you.

You use the Internet as a way of escaping from your own feelings.

You have intended to cut down on your time online, but have not.

Coping Effectively with Internet Dependence

The first step in coping effectively with Internet dependence is recognizing that the problem exists. As with other kinds of behavior that have become habitual or compulsive, the individual suffering from Internet dependence may not be conscious of the extent to which his or her behavior has become problematic. The fact that the costs of Internet use have come to outweigh its benefits may at first be denied, but this fact needs to be acknowledged.

 On one level, Internet dependence is a behavioral, time-management problem. Most individuals dealing with Internet dependence find that it is helpful to alter their routines. They often need to limit the time they stay online and make an effort to devote time to other activities. They may need outside help of some sort in adhering to the limits they set for themselves.

On a deeper, more significant level, Internet dependence is a problem of human disconnection. It would be most helpful—though it may seem extremely difficult at first—to cultivate flesh-and-blood relationships in addition to cyber-relationships. Avoidance of face-to-face relationships is often a part of Internet dependence. It is also often the case that Internet dependence has been driven by feelings such as boredom, anxiety, emptiness, or loneliness. It is important for each individual to consider what has led to the dependence and what has been keeping it in place. Counseling can be a very useful way of getting support, exploring the issues and feelings involved in the dependence, and deciding what specific options would be most appropriate.

Virtual Worlds: The Final Frontier

But there is something new that has taken shape on the Internet, which may ultimately dwarf the importance of the Internet’s communities: Virtual Worlds.

Many people will dismiss these as nothing more than multi-player video games. We’ve had complex games for years, haven’t we?

The millions of people networking, sharing information, and living together through the Internet have irrevocably changed society, partly by making the Internet an integral part of our daily activities, and partly by changing our expectations of relationships, information, and commerce in a way that has carried over into brick and mortar parts of the economy.

So to the millions of people spending hours in virtual worlds will change the culture outside of the games, partly by making it commonplace for people to spend hours in virtual worlds, living other lives, and partly by changing the expectations that those players will have of their non-virtual worlds.

The numbers of people spending hours in these games is growing quickly.

Soon there will be hundreds of millions of people spending time in these worlds.

These worlds have culture, economies, and meaning.

The people who play these games find meaning in their identities and lives within the game, often more meaning than in their everyday lives.

Does it sound foolish or crazy to you?

The players in these worlds think about their time in the games as just living there.

Virtual worlds on the Internet enable us to lead simulated lives that we care about. This kind of experience has immeasurably more power to influence us than our relationships within the existing virtual communities, or the presentation of the same ideas in any other format.

Conclusion

As we approach a new millennium, the Internet is revolutionizing our society, our economy and our technological systems. No one knows for certain how far, or in what direction, the Internet will evolve. But no one should underestimate its importance.

Over the past century and a half, important technological developments have created a global environment that is drawing the people of the world closer and closer together. During the industrial revolution, we learned to put motors to work to magnify human and animal muscle power. In the new Information Age, we are learning to magnify brainpower by putting the power of computation wherever we need it, and to provide information services on a global basis. Computer resources are infinitely flexible tools; networked together, they allow us to generate, exchange, share and manipulate information in an uncountable number of ways. The Internet, as an integrating force, has melded the technology of communications and computing to provide instant connectivity and global information services to all its users at very low cost.

Ten years ago, most of the world knew little or nothing about the Internet. It was the private enclave of computer scientists and researchers who used it to interact with colleagues in their respective disciplines. Today, the Internet’s magnitude is thousands of times what it was only a decade ago. It is estimated that about 60 million host computers on the Internet today serve about 200 million users in over 200 countries and territories. Today’s telephone system is still much larger: about 3 billion people around the world now talk on almost 950 million telephone lines (about 250 million of which are actually radio-based cell phones). But by the end of the year 2000, the authors estimate there will be at least 300 million Internet users. Also, the total numbers of host computers and users have been growing at about 33% every six months since 1988 – or roughly 80% per year. The telephone service, in comparison, grows an average of about 5-10% per year. That means if the Internet keeps growing steadily the way it has been growing over the past few years, it will be nearly as big as today’s telephone system by about 2006.

While working on this project we studied a lot of literature, spent much time in the Internet and this helped to reveal the theme, to take up all the questions we were interested in. It was quite interesting and informative. We found out a lot not only about the Internet in general but about our friends and classmates.  

We also surveyed students of our school and asked them a few questions. The results of the survey approved everything we had learned earlier.

Undoubtedly, the Internet as a technological phenomenon has some serious drawbacks. However, in our opinion, positive effects of using the Internet heavily outweigh its drawbacks. It is obvious that the development of the Internet is connected with a number of great positive changes and new opportunities for all of us. Therefore, we are convinced that for every aspect of today’s life, the Internet and modern Internet technologies cause more good than harm. The Internet is neither good nor bad, it can be dangerous and useful at the same time, and everyone should make his own choice to use it or not. 

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5    

Appendix 6

The list of the literature

1. Юрьева Л.Н. Больбот Т.Ю. "Компьютерная зависимость".  [Электронный ресурс]http://mirknig.com/2008/09/25/kompjuternaja-zavisimost.html 
2. В.П. Леонтьев Справочник "Интернет" 
3. Б.Г. Жадаев "Интернет для начинающих" 
4. Престон Гралла "Хитрости. Интернет" 
5. А. Игнатьев. Подросток в Интернете. Что он там делает? [Электронный ресурс] http://www.eti-deti.ru/teens/123.html 
6. Центр цифровых технологий будущего [Электронный ресурс] http://net.compulenta.ru/253817
7.  Влияние интернета на детей и современную молодежь - http://referat911.ru/Sociologiya/vliyanie-interneta-na-detej-i/25792-1235840-place1.html
8. Интернет глазами школьника -  http://student.zoomru.ru/informat/internet-galzami-shkolnika/86238.696846.s1.html
9. Ребенок и компьютер - http://www.nnre.ru/kompyutery_i_internet/zashita_vashego_kompyutera/p10.php
10. Мировая статистика интернета - http://cospi.ru/mirovaya-statistika-interneta/
11. Дети и социальные сети - http://statistic.su/blog/deti_i_socialnye_seti/2012-02-27-591
12. Опасности, подстерегающие ребенка в Интернете - ttps://www.wiredsafety.org/