Parents' Awareness about Positive and Negative Impact of Internet Use

Begum F

Abstract

Objective: To assess the internet addicted teenagers’ parents’ awareness about positive and negative impact of internet use. Methods: A survey was conducted to find out the parents’ awareness about positive and negative impact of internet use by distributing a questionnaire to the parents of those teenagers already identified as internet addicted. Results: 70.3% mothers of internet addicted teenagers agreed that internet is useful to support in education and 78.7% mothers agreed that internet is useful for attaining information whereas 100% fathers agreed that internet is very useful to supports education and attaining information, 49% mothers and 71.4% fathers believed internet is useful for individual development whereas 78% mothers and 97.4% fathers believed that internet is very useful for communication and entertainment, 57.6% mothers of internet addicted teenagers believed that internet somewhat facilitate easy access to child unfriendly contents whereas 100% fathers of the internet addicted teenagers believed that internet very much facilitate easy access to child unfriendly contents, 70.3% mothers and 65.3% fathers had the opinion that internet somewhat has negative effect on individual’s life, 64% mothers believed that internet somewhat puts negative impact on human psychology on the other hand 100% fathers believed that internet somewhat puts negative impact on human psychology, 76.3% mothers and 64.2% fathers agreed that internet somewhat has negative impact on physical health. Conclusion: Though teenagers’ parents have some knowledge about the positive and negative impact of internet, they have poor control over their children or, they don’t know the strategic management for prevention and management of internet addiction.