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Will it make or break our children’s future?
Will the internet make our kids smarter, more knowledgeable and more capable of having a bright future? Or will the next generation be goggle-eyed dullards capable of only cutting and pasting. An 11-year old internet user shares his thoughts with AOL.

FOR
Like most kids I use the internet for both fun and schoolwork. For fun I make websites with games and photos, and for schoolwork I use search engines and other internet sources. My schoolwork would suffer extremely if I didn’t use the internet. Like most people I don’t have a library in my bedroom. The amount of time I am allowed on the computer is monitored by< my parents so that I also do things like read and play outside. Normal usage is five hours a week for schoolwork, and three hours a week for fun. However I can earn extra time by doing special things for my mum. Unless you have your own super-library then finding the correct book could take hours. If given the choice most kids prefer using the internet for their schoolwork because it’s easier, faster and smarter. It is really important not to use the first information that you find. Read through a few sites and compare the content. I usually choose the information I need from the different sites, copy-paste into a blank document, print it out, read it all to understand and learn it. Then when I am sure I understand it all I type it in my own words. At school we have the right type of books so our teacher encourages us to look in a book and communicate with each other. Not all schools pay enough attention to making sure that kids learn a lot about computers. This is really bad as children will need to use the internet later on in life when they go to university or get a job.
It makes me really happy when I have a good result on the internet. It feels almost as good as scoring at basketball. A good result is when I find information that is easy to use, read, and allows me to print it. The information has to be correct and have good pictures. I would love having the internet in my bedroom but only if my parents had a 100% trust in me. Once I put our home address and telephone number on a website I had made and I thought they were going to kill me, they were that angry! It would be great to have it in my room so if there were anything I needed to do I wouldn’t need to disturb others or be disturbed by them. Hopefully one day I’ll be allowed internet access in my room. My favourite point about the internet is that it can be so easy. 1.Get assignment. 2. Find information. 3. Type/print. It’s as simple as 1-2-3. The best thing it does for young people is teach them the value of good information. The internet will continue to grow as more and more people realise what you can learn. At my age the next few years will be tough schooling and I am glad I will have the internet with me for the next few years and yes I will definitely use it later on in life.

AGAINST
There is a worry that we don’t use our brains as much as we should, like how some kids don’t know their timetables any more because they spent too much time using calculators. Also if we are using a computer there is nobody to communicate with which isn’t good either. When you look in a book you are learning new words, grammar, and punctuation. On a computer you are not doing that as writing for a website is more like writing for an advert than a book. Another bad thing about the internet is that it can be so tempting for people to change from important things they are supposed to be doing to playing games instead. It also draws you in, e.g. the more you use it, the more you want to use it. Sometimes I will look for information in a book instead as my parents are worried that I might rely too much on the internet. Once you find the right book and it has the information it’s great because it can sometime be easier and also the information from the internet may not be true. One of the problems with the internet is it does make students lazy. With homework some of my classmates take weeks doing it, leave it till the last second then just copy-paste-print or say they couldn’t find anything. Only a handful of people in my class don’t have access to the internet. Surprisingly some with internet have worse results than those without the internet. That might be because there is so much information that sometimes it takes ages to find exactly what you need. Maybe they are doing better using books. I know I will always find some information but it’s finding good quality information that can be difficult. The other reason I don’t have internet access in my bedroom is because my mom doesn’t think it’s appropriate and she is also worried about what might pop up on my screen. She and my dad worry about the explicit sites that sometimes come up when I use search engines. I wish< something could be done so that when I do a search for something like ‘motorcycles and teenagers’ I don’t get material that I am uncomfortable with or embarrassed by. So yes, I do understand why they won’t let me and I wish someone would do something about all that stuff because it seems to be getting worse.

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