bad uses of internet essay

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How the internet can harm us, and what can we do about it?

The internet has received much negative news coverage in recent years.

Written by Gianluca Quaglio,

The internet has received much negative news coverage in recent years. Articles focus on major privacy scandals and security breaches, the proliferation of fake news, rampant harmful behaviours like cyber-bullying, cyber-theft, revenge porn, the exchange of child porn and internet predation, internet addiction, and the negative effects of the internet on social relations and social cohesion. Nevertheless, some 87 % of European households have internet access at home, and 65 % use mobile devices to access the internet. Europeans aged 16 to 24 years spend 168 minutes per day on mobile internet, dropping to 30 minutes for 55 to 64-year olds. Around 88 % of 15 to 24-year olds use social media, 80 % on a daily basis.

While the social and economic benefits of the internet cannot be denied, some of these developments can severely affect such European values as equality, respect for human rights and democracy. Technology companies are under increasing pressure to mitigate these harmful effects, and politicians and opinion leaders are advocating drastic measures.

The recently published STOA study on ‘Harmful internet use’ covers the damage associated with internet use on individuals’ health, wellbeing and functioning, and the impact on social structures and institutions. While the study does not attempt to cover all possible societal harm relating to the internet, Part I focuses on one specific cause of harm, internet addiction, and Part II covers a range of harmful effects on individuals and society that are associated with internet use. The report concludes with policy options for their prevention and mitigation.

Other studies have already extensively discussed some harmful effects, and these are already subject to a history of policy actions. These include harm to privacy, harm related to cybersecurity and cybercrime, and damage resulting from digital divides. In contrast, this study covers the less-studied but equally important harmful effects that concern individuals’ health, wellbeing and functioning, the quality of social structures and institutions, and equality and social inclusion.

Internet addiction and problematic internet use                             

Internet addiction and problematic internet use prevalence rates vary across studies and countries. The noteworthy discrepancy in prevalence estimates has a number of causes, including the different populations studied, as well as the various diagnostic tools and assessment criteria utilised. With this in mind, it appears that roughly 4 % of European adolescents demonstrate a pathological use of the internet that affects their life and health, while 13 % of adolescents engage in maladaptive behaviour when using the internet. Similar numbers are reported for adults.

Part I of the study focuses on generalised internet addiction, online gaming addiction, and online gambling addiction. Clinical presentations, patient profiling, comorbidities, instruments, interventions, and prognoses are different across these three potential addiction disorders. The study states that the individual, cultural and media-use context significantly contributes to the experience and severity of internet addiction.

The study proposes a set of preventive actions, and evidence to support future policies . It states that offering information, screening tools and campaigns to students in secondary schools and at universities regarding internet-use-related addiction problems can help, especially regarding gaming addiction in adolescent populations. This will require allocating research and resources for schools and their staff, and for families, as well as the establishment of working relationships with health professionals and services.

Harmful social and cultural effects associated with internet use

Part II of the study identifies a number of different harmful social and cultural effects associated with internet use. The evidence points to the occurrence of significant damage to both individuals and society. Some of these harmful effects are described briefly below:

Information overload: Having too much information to be able to adequately understand an issue or make effective decisions. Information overload is associated with loss of control, feelings of being overwhelmed, reduced intellectual performance, and diminished job satisfaction. Studies show that information overload affects up to 20-30% of people.

Damage to social relationships: Extensive internet use, of social media in particular, is correlated with loneliness and social isolation. Intimate relationships can be degraded by internet use, particularly due to viewing online pornography. Malicious online behaviour, particularly cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking and online predation, affects a significant percentage of internet users.

Impaired public/private boundaries: The way in which the internet and smartphones blur the distinction between private and public, and between different spheres of life, including work, home life and leisure, harms the boundaries between people’s public and private lives. Harmful effects that can result from such permeations include loss of quality of life, lack of privacy, decreased safety and security, and harm to social relations – when friends and family members feel they are left behind by new technology.

Harmful effects on cognitive development: Empirical evidence suggests that internet use can have both positive and negative impacts on cognitive development, depending on the person and the circumstances. There is evidence that children’s cognitive development can be damaged by prolonged internet use, including the development of memory skills, attention span, abilities for critical reasoning, language acquisition, reading, and learning abilities. More research is however needed to draw more reliable conclusions.

Damage to communities: Many off-line communities suffer through the partial migration of human activities – shopping, commerce, socialising, leisure activities, professional interactions – to the internet. Online communities sometimes extend off-line communities and sometimes replace them. They are often inadequate replacements, however, as they do not possess some of the valuable or the strongest qualities of off-line communities, and communities may consequently suffer from impoverished communication, incivility, and a lack of trust and commitment.

The study identifies a number of broad policy options for preventing and mitigating these harmful effects. They include, among other things:

• promoting technology that better protects social institutions, stimulating or requiring tech companies to introduce products and services that better protect social institutions and internet users;
• education about the internet and its consequences;
• stronger social services support for internet users: this policy option involves strengthening social services dedicated to internet users to prevent or mitigate harmful effects such as internet addition, antisocial online behaviour or information overload;
• incentivising or requiring employers to develop policies that protect workers against harmful effects of work-related internet use, such as information overload and the blurring of lines between public and private life;
• establishing governmental units and multi-stakeholder platforms at EU level,to address the problems of the internet’s harmful social and cultural effects.

Problematic use of the internet (PUI) research network

Finally, in relation to internet-caused damage, it is worth mentioning the recent article published by the European Science-Media Hub (ESMH) on the European Problematic Use of Internet (PUI) research network. The project, funded by the European Commission, gathers over 120 psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists, with the objective of reaching a better definition of diagnostic criteria, the role of genetics and personality traits, and the brain-based mechanisms behind internet related disorders.

Scientific Foresight (STOA)

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This is good

I agree with the article, because although the internet helps us to many things such as allowing us to stay connected with family, friends and provides us access to a lot of information, although this may be too much and some of it is not correct. And as the article says it is worrying how this has become an addiction and causes us cognitive problems and problems in our relationships, because we do not know or do not occupy it with a correct use and do not put certain limits, plus we can suffer from cyberbullying, etc., plus then the comments we make some people do it with bad intentions and to hurt others.

All the information seems too precise to me and the truth is I had never thought about all that, the use of the Internet is increasingly sophisticated and many people are not aware of the damage they can cause and generate to themselves, the Internet helps us of course, but we are not prepared because we do not take into account the harm it can do to others if we use it in the wrong way and even worse to ourselves if we do not use it in a good way.

The Internet is a tool that can help or affect society just as all tools currently in society do. The issue that really worries me is the addition to the Internet since everything in excess is harmful to health and integrity as a person, the technology helps electronic commerce as we are experiencing it today, a benefit to society is the medical advances with which I agree, previously I only did my homework in libraries but now I do my homework from my phone. Yes. The internet is addictive.

I agree that the Internet is a great tool, but misuse can have immense consequences, especially for current and future generations. Although it offers immense benefits in terms of global communication, transportation, information gathering, education, e-commerce, etc., its prolonged use can have a negative impact on cognitive development, attention span and critical thinking, since on the net we can find a lot of people who incite bad practices such as cyber-bullying, cyber-harassment, pornography, etc. So it is a great tool and it is necessary to be at the forefront, but being aware of how far it is OK to go and without forgetting the wonders that the world can offer us.

It is true that the Internet has been the subject of much negative coverage in recent years. However, it is important to remember that it has also brought many benefits to society, such as facilitating communication, access to information and connection between people around the world. As with any tool, it is important to use the Internet responsibly and consciously to make the most of its advantages. In the same way it can also have negative effects on society and culture and we should put more importance on misinformation, cyber bullying, social media addiction and loss of privacy which are just some of the problems associated with excessive and irresponsible use of the Internet. It is important to be aware of these risks and take steps to protect our safety and well-being while enjoying the advantages that technology offers us.

I agree with the article.

The Internet has been one of the most important discoveries in history, as it allows us to have at our disposal a large amount of information and tools that help us remember things or do them for us, distract ourselves, learn a topic or language, etc.

However, there must be a limit on the time we spend online because if we are exposed to the internet for a long time, we can suffer serious consequences. Also from time to time ask ourselves: what are we seeing on the internet? and check that we are actually doing something productive with that time spent.

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Negative Impact of Internet on Society Essay

Introduction, thesis statement about internet, literature review, works cited.

Today it is eminent that the role of computers has a huge impact on every person. Computerization has taken over the majority of the societal roles and has dramatically improved lives. The battle with technology is dynamic and a continuous process expected to bring about new challenges each day.

This primary influence comes from Internet usage, which seems to be very vibrant, particularly among the youth, due to the stable and anticipated creativity. That’s why the author will explore the negative impact of the Internet on society in the essay.

Society is dependent on technology today. Having computers in the workplace, homes, and mobility enable effectiveness and efficiency. Today’s technology has advanced to a point where there is massive support for security intelligence. The Internet, therefore, enables resourceful communication and sharing of any form of information, whether it is useful or abusive.

“The Internet technology is affecting an individual’s life in a negative way.” This paper examines the real situational effects of internet technology on users and forms an analysis of how the Internet can cause depression. This negative effects of the Internet essay also focuses on the intellectual behavior of people regarding effects and other cyber-related crimes.

Effects of Internet usage on the brain and behavioral development

One prominent impact of internet technology is the creation of a democratic media. The broadcast is international and free.

According to McDonnell (p.1) the highly recognized sites that allow a personal view makes the aspect of internet publishing easy and accessible to the majority without the need for technical knowledge. Internet tools in the majority of the search engines such as Google promote democratic media and form a basis for other macro-media such as weblogs, videocasts, wikis and podcasts.

The universal knowledge behind these tools is to enhance knowledge transmission by allowing direct and literal subscription and automatic collection of text, audio or visual data. Internet is thus a good source of peer pressure, particularly among the youth.

Through internet usage, people are putting up with negative information and giving up personal trust and values, and such pressure becomes a form of a negative force. In most cases, it would be invariable to have a link between the development of the brain and the behaviors. The Internet provides high emotional or intense influences, thus leading to a poor decision such as crime related activities.

The brain of a teenager is under some less optimal control mechanisms and thus under higher probability to act from guts or instincts in submitting to internet posting that relates to criminal activities, especially when confronted with stressful, depressing or emotional strains.

Internet users are hastier, insistent, emotionally volatile, high-risk takers, proactive and reactive to strain or stress and are thus at risk of peer influences (McDonnell, p.1). They focus on the short time payoffs, underrate any long-term consequences, and are therefore prone to looking for an alternative course of actions such as cyber crimes.

Psychological Effects of Internet on Young People

Young people are often curious; therefore, their time on the internet is the time of experimenting and seeking newness. The adolescent brain may be more vulnerable to social discomforts due to internet addiction. These social effects can bring about potential social experiences, such as contributing to the feeling of less shyness, more interaction, ability to hack others’ information and discover more from the internet. Some of the unrestricted information on the internet also causes negative behaviors.

Phonographic material causes negative anxiety and inability to make decisions makes them feel the need to explore their sexuality and deal with different emotions concern with uncertain and impulsive activities since human beings have to make decisions based on the challenge at hand.

There are many different reasons why people use the internet, probably to relax, have fun, find rest, forget problems, and mostly to meet friends. The youth mainly engage in internet activities because they easily find their styles. They suffer from external or internal anxieties while trying to be like others. Internet usage is fine as long as it serves the role of determining the right character in a person.

The social interaction on the internet is arguably one of the reasons why American teenagers mimic the same lifestyles and have similar talking style. People in a group network act differently and do some weird activities they would probably not do on their own. This is the identity of a group as opposed to that of an individual. The control placed on these behaviors can easily crumple before the achievement of a valued need.

One of the huge challenges of internet usage among children and teenagers is increased maturity and changes in the lifestyle that easily leads to criminal activities or conflicts. If not controlled, internet usage leads to addiction or continual usage thus a trend that causes solitary usage and depression. In most instances, when solitary use occurs, then the addict has more significant future problems related to chronic addiction and isolation from the rest or even communication problems that may lead to mental-related complications (Kelland, p.1).

If not controlled, internet usage leads to addiction. This form of usage thus causes friendlessness and depression. In most instances, when solitary occurs, then the internet addict has more significant future problems related to other kinds of chronic addictions and communication problems that may lead to mental-related complications.

According to Glor, (p.1), addictive surfing can have a severe impact on mental health, “internet addicts” spent proportionately more time browsing sexually satisfying websites, online gaming sites, and online communities. They replace real-life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites and this in time is replacing normal social function, which might have a link to psychological disorders like depression and addiction.

Cyberbullying is also becoming a common trend where we find rude comments and insulting words that one would never use in person. The police explorations of whether cyber intimidation was the root cause of teenage suicide in the New York town of West Islip, is a clear indication of how internet addiction is contributing to depression. That Soccer star Alexis Pilkington, 17, took her own life on March 21, 2010, following social disturbances from social networking sites (Glor, p.1).

Analysis of Internet addiction as a psychological illness

According to Citizen (p.1), when someone is, using the internet, it is possible to suffer from several illnesses or addicted. The illness or condition depends on what you are doing and how long you will be online. When used to cyber cafe visits to read e-mail, one is tempted to take more time to excessive gaming, chatting and text messaging.

This can lead to brain illness because people often neglect essential livelihood requirement such as sleep or food due to internet addiction, they suffering but consciously assume it is a healthy lifestyle. This chronic illness can smoothly go unnoticed unless a therapist intercedes (Citizen, p.1).

The most affected people are those who are educated but socially shy. In line with Citizen (p.1), they are mostly the middle age women. They use computers as an escape route from reality. A computer does affect people’s lives and cause emotional upsets to the person who wants to be pre-occupied online for a long time.

Effects of Internet on Lifestyles

“The Chinese government launched a national wide campaign after a survey found that 14 percent of their teens are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the internet” (Eunjung Cha, p.1). According to the government, they are trying to stamp out what the communist youth league calls “a grave social problem” (Eunjung Cha, p.1).

The state policies focus more on eliminating cybercrime, which seem to ruin lives for instance cases where causes of assassination have a connection to mimicked characters in online entertainments. The internet is equally forming a sequence of suicide-related cases and poor studies, especially among the youth.

Depression and suicidal thoughts are higher among the students deemed “internet-addicts” (Eunjung Cha, p.1). According to self-report questionnaires, gender is not a differential factor. Internet addiction was likely to affect males, as well as females and cause children-major depression disorder.

Eunjung Cha, (p.1) indicated that users are becoming addicted to the internet similarly that individuals become addicted to drugs or alcohol. This internet addiction finally leads to academic, social and occupational impairments. According to Eunjung Cha, (p.1), individuals on chat rooms may use tactics, such as peer pressure to arouse feelings and thus course them to commit suicide.

Effects of internet on schools

Today, digital technology has become completely part of the youth’s life. It has fully incorporated all the social characteristics in their lives. Many students pick up new styles of learning, communicating with new people and formulating creativity. The behaviors are like permanent fixtures into their reasoning styles and operating procedures.

It is common to find a situation where children use knowledge-gathering techniques that appear alien to adults, mainly their parents and teachers. In relation to Lane (p.1), such advancements have severe impacts on the education platform.

People have established ways of harnessing the technological aspects into career settings for decades but failed to implement security and ways of limiting information access. There is some resistance on usage, but implementation is a good indication that educators appreciate the effectiveness and importance of technology.

According to McDonnell (p.1), the education sector is the most affected by internet usage; students can gather techniques of hacking networks and finding illegal ways of accessing information. This is arguably the reason why institutions are also not enthusiastic enough to embrace full technological platforms such as digital networks and incorporation of social networks to education systems. They focus on security matters due to potential threats posed by social network technologies.

Current social settings can give the impression that internet usage is under control, but a closer look at the phenomenon indicates that every day a person starts to use and subsequently becomes addicted to the negative aspects available in the net.

Possibly the pressure to resist deception is tremendous and persistent unless there is an intervention, especially by the authorities such as parents when the person involved, is a minor. Sometimes failure to control internet access is due to the current social setting for instance; most of the parents are full-time employees probably looking for the overtime and better remuneration in support of the family.

They may be trying to work out one area while the other collapses. The biggest problem in the majority of the minds lies on the reason why people especially the youth are misusing the internet. The most likely answer is within the family setting. They emulate their parents who are their closest role models.

They embrace the social settings and meet friends who deceive them into engaging in social mischiefs such as pornography, online gambling, and information-hacking activities. They may also suffer from solitary use due to stress. Whichever the case, parents are the most effective cure to the vice. It is the parental responsibility to face the problem and talk out with the teenagers on the dangers involved before things are out of hand.

Citizen, Ottawa. “ Recognize Internet addiction as a mental illness, MD urges that compulsive e-mailing and text messaging could soon become classified as an official brain illness. ” Canada: CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc .2008. Web.

Eunjung Cha, Ariana. “ In China, Stern Treatment For Young Internet ‘Addicts’ .”

Washington, WA: The Washington Post Foreign Service. 2007. Web.

Glor, Jeff. “ Cyberbullying Continued After Teen’s Death. ” New York, NY: CBS Interactive Inc. March 29, 2010. Web.

Kelland, Kate. “ Study links excessive Internet use to depression. ” London, UK: Lane, Reuters Inc. Feb 3, 2010. Web.

Lane, Christopher. “ Side Effects From quirky to serious, trends in psychology and psychiatry .” New York, NY: Sussex Publishers, LLC. 2009. Web.

McDonnell, Dean. “ How does the internet affect the way we mentally behave? ” Hubpages Inc. (n.d.) Web.

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Science News Explores

Internet use may harm teen health.

Scientists find that heavy Internet use puts teens at risk of high blood pressure

Teens who spend more than two hours a day on the Internet are at much higher risk of high blood pressure than are low-Internet users.

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By Alison Pearce Stevens

October 22, 2015 at 6:15 am

Connecting with other teens online may be fun. But spending too much time on the Internet could lead to health problems, a new study reports. Heavy Internet use appears able to put teens at serious risk of high blood pressure, it finds.

As the term suggests, high blood pressure exerts extra outward pressure on vessel walls. With exercise, blood pressure increases. At rest, that pressure should return to a relatively low, background level. But in some people, it remains relatively elevated, even at rest.

High blood pressure in children and teens often continues into adulthood, says Andrea Cassidy-Bushrow, who led the new study. That’s a problem, she says. Persistent high blood pressure can trigger serious health problems, from kidney disease and memory loss to eye damage and heart disease or stroke.

Cassidy-Bushrow works at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Mich. As an epidemiologist, she investigates causes of illness.

Explainer: What is anxiety?

What might make Internet use more dangerous? It isn’t passive, like watching TV, Cassidy-Bushrow explains. There’s also the growing risk of cyberbullying, which can make it more stressful than other types of screen time.

What’s more, Internet connections are available in 98 percent of U.S. public schools. With cell phones and other mobile devices, the Internet can be as close as the touch of a button for most tweens and teens. And it’s available around the clock. Frequent Internet use has been linked to anxiety, addiction and social isolation. All of these are associated with high blood pressure in adults.

So the researchers recruited 331 adolescents, aged 14 to 17, to study whether Internet use might influence blood pressure in teens.

In the lab, the scientists measured each teen’s blood pressure, height and weight. They used some of these data to calculate each teen’s body mass index , or BMI. BMI is one way to look at whether somebody is over- or underweight. The teens also answered questions about how much time they spend on the Internet. This included both the number of hours per day as well as the number of days per week.

Nearly all of the teens had used the Internet during the week before their lab visit. Most reported accessing the Internet both at home and at school. Most also reported moderate to heavy Internet use. The researchers defined heavy use as two or more hours each and every day. Moderate use involved less than two hours a day on five to seven days a week. Light users accessed the internet for less than two hours a day and on no more than four days a week.

Four out of 10 teens used the Internet more than two hours every day. Nineteen percent of these heavy users had high blood pressure. That’s compared to just seven percent of light users. Another four in ten teens reported moderate use. These teens had moderately high blood pressure.

The findings appear in the October 2015 Journal of School Nursing.

“It’s an interesting study,” says Ellen Wartella. She is a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. But, she points out, the study has a major limitation: The researchers measured blood pressure only once for each teen. However, she notes, “We know it varies considerably.” So a single data point for each person may not accurately reflect a teen’s average daily blood pressure.

Cassidy-Bushrow agrees that more research needs to be done. However, she adds, single blood-pressure readings have been used in other studies. For now, she recommends that school nurses screen students for high blood pressure and moderate to heavy Internet use.

Education and training for teens, teachers and parents also could help ensure that teens find a healthy balance in their online life, she says. That could go a long way in helping protect the health of people growing up in this digital age.

Power Words

(for more about power words, click here ).

addiction  The uncontrolled use of a habit-forming drug or uncontrolled and unhealthy habit (such as video game playing or phone texting). It results from an illness triggered by brain changes that occur after using some drugs or engaging in some extremely pleasurable activities. People with an addiction will feel a compelling need to use a drug (which can be alcohol, the nicotine in tobacco, a prescription drug or an illegal chemical such as cocaine or heroin), even when the user knows that doing so risks severe health or legal consequences.

adolescence     A transitional stage of physical and psychological development that begins at the onset of puberty, typically between the ages of 11 and 13, and ends with adulthood.

anxiety   A nervous disorder causing excessive uneasiness and apprehension. People with anxiety may even develop panic attacks.

behavior   The way a person or other organism acts towards others, or conducts itself.

body mass index   ( BMI ) A person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. BMI can be used to measure if someone is overweight or obese. However, because BMI does not account for how much muscle or fat a person has, it is not an accurate measure.

bullying   (v. to bully) A group of repeated behaviors that are mean-spirited. They can include teasing, spreading rumors about someone, saying hurtful things to someone and intentionally leaving someone out of groups or activities. Sometimes bullying can include attacks using violence (such as hitting), threats of violence, yelling at someone or abusing someone with violent language. Much bullying takes place in person. But it also may occur online, through emails or via text messages. Newer examples including making fake profiles of people on websites or posting embarrassing photos or videos on social media.

cyber   A prefix that refers to computers or to a type of system in which computerized or online communication occurs.

depression   A mental illness characterized by persistent sadness and apathy. Although these feelings can be triggered by events, such as the death of a loved one or the move to a new city, that isn’t typically considered an “illness” — unless the symptoms are prolonged and harm an individual’s ability to perform normal daily tasks (such as working, sleeping or interacting with others). People suffering from depression often feel they lack the energy needed to get anything done. They may have difficulty concentrating on things or showing an interest in normal events. Many times, these feelings seem to be triggered by nothing; they can appear out of nowhere.

digital age   A term used to describe the modern era with widespread use of computers and reliance on computing.

epidemiologist  Like health detectives, these researchers figure out what causes a particular illness and how to limit its spread.

high blood pressure  The common term for a medical condition known as hypertension. It puts a strain on blood vessels and the heart.

obesity   Extreme overweight. Obesity is associated with a wide range of health problems, including type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

psychology  The study of the human mind, especially in relation to actions and behavior. Scientists and mental-health professionals who work in this field are known as psychologists.

social   (adj.) Relating to gatherings of people; a term for animals (or people) that prefer to exist in groups. (noun) A gathering of people, for instance those who belong to a club or other organization, for the purpose of enjoying each other’s company.

sodium   A basic building block of table salt (a molecule of which consists of one atom of sodium and one atom of chlorine: NaCl).

tween    A child just approaching his or her teenage years. Tween is a term usually used for 11- to 12-years olds. 

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The wonderful world of fungi, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, simultaneous translation technology – ever closer to reality, featured author, latest book, the impact of the internet on society: a global perspective, introduction.

The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, as the electrical engine was the vector of technological transformation of the Industrial Age. This global network of computer networks, largely based nowadays on platforms of wireless communication, provides ubiquitous capacity of multimodal, interactive communication in chosen time, transcending space. The Internet is not really a new technology: its ancestor, the Arpanet, was first deployed in 1969 (Abbate 1999). But it was in the 1990s when it was privatized and released from the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce that it diffused around the world at extraordinary speed: in 1996 the first survey of Internet users counted about 40 million; in 2013 they are over 2.5 billion, with China accounting for the largest number of Internet users. Furthermore, for some time the spread of the Internet was limited by the difficulty to lay out land-based telecommunications infrastructure in the emerging countries. This has changed with the explosion of wireless communication in the early twenty-first century. Indeed, in 1991, there were about 16 million subscribers of wireless devices in the world, in 2013 they are close to 7 billion (in a planet of 7.7 billion human beings). Counting on the family and village uses of mobile phones, and taking into consideration the limited use of these devices among children under five years of age, we can say that humankind is now almost entirely connected, albeit with great levels of inequality in the bandwidth as well as in the efficiency and price of the service.

At the heart of these communication networks the Internet ensures the production, distribution, and use of digitized information in all formats. According to the study published by Martin Hilbert in Science (Hilbert and López 2011), 95 percent of all information existing in the planet is digitized and most of it is accessible on the Internet and other computer networks.

The speed and scope of the transformation of our communication environment by Internet and wireless communication has triggered all kind of utopian and dystopian perceptions around the world.

As in all moments of major technological change, people, companies, and institutions feel the depth of the change, but they are often overwhelmed by it, out of sheer ignorance of its effects.

The media aggravate the distorted perception by dwelling into scary reports on the basis of anecdotal observation and biased commentary. If there is a topic in which social sciences, in their diversity, should contribute to the full understanding of the world in which we live, it is precisely the area that has come to be named in academia as Internet Studies. Because, in fact, academic research knows a great deal on the interaction between Internet and society, on the basis of methodologically rigorous empirical research conducted in a plurality of cultural and institutional contexts. Any process of major technological change generates its own mythology. In part because it comes into practice before scientists can assess its effects and implications, so there is always a gap between social change and its understanding. For instance, media often report that intense use of the Internet increases the risk of alienation, isolation, depression, and withdrawal from society. In fact, available evidence shows that there is either no relationship or a positive cumulative relationship between the Internet use and the intensity of sociability. We observe that, overall, the more sociable people are, the more they use the Internet. And the more they use the Internet, the more they increase their sociability online and offline, their civic engagement, and the intensity of family and friendship relationships, in all cultures—with the exception of a couple of early studies of the Internet in the 1990s, corrected by their authors later (Castells 2001; Castells et al. 2007; Rainie and Wellman 2012; Center for the Digital Future 2012 et al.).

Thus, the purpose of this chapter will be to summarize some of the key research findings on the social effects of the Internet relying on the evidence provided by some of the major institutions specialized in the social study of the Internet. More specifically, I will be using the data from the world at large: the World Internet Survey conducted by the Center for the Digital Future, University of Southern California; the reports of the British Computer Society (BCS), using data from the World Values Survey of the University of Michigan; the Nielsen reports for a variety of countries; and the annual reports from the International Telecommunications Union. For data on the United States, I have used the Pew American Life and Internet Project of the Pew Institute. For the United Kingdom, the Oxford Internet Survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, as well as the Virtual Society Project from the Economic and Social Science Research Council. For Spain, the Project Internet Catalonia of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC); the various reports on the information society from Telefónica; and from the Orange Foundation. For Portugal, the Observatório de Sociedade da Informação e do Conhecimento (OSIC) in Lisbon. I would like to emphasize that most of the data in these reports converge toward similar trends. Thus I have selected for my analysis the findings that complement and reinforce each other, offering a consistent picture of the human experience on the Internet in spite of the human diversity.

Given the aim of this publication to reach a broad audience, I will not present in this text the data supporting the analysis presented here. Instead, I am referring the interested reader to the web sources of the research organizations mentioned above, as well as to selected bibliographic references discussing the empirical foundation of the social trends reported here.

Technologies of Freedom, the Network Society, and the Culture of Autonomy

In order to fully understand the effects of the Internet on society, we should remember that technology is material culture. It is produced in a social process in a given institutional environment on the basis of the ideas, values, interests, and knowledge of their producers, both their early producers and their subsequent producers. In this process we must include the users of the technology, who appropriate and adapt the technology rather than adopting it, and by so doing they modify it and produce it in an endless process of interaction between technological production and social use. So, to assess the relevance of Internet in society we must recall the specific characteristics of Internet as a technology. Then we must place it in the context of the transformation of the overall social structure, as well as in relationship to the culture characteristic of this social structure. Indeed, we live in a new social structure, the global network society, characterized by the rise of a new culture, the culture of autonomy.

Internet is a technology of freedom, in the terms coined by Ithiel de Sola Pool in 1973, coming from a libertarian culture, paradoxically financed by the Pentagon for the benefit of scientists, engineers, and their students, with no direct military application in mind (Castells 2001). The expansion of the Internet from the mid-1990s onward resulted from the combination of three main factors:

• The technological discovery of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee and his willingness to distribute the source code to improve it by the open-source contribution of a global community of users, in continuity with the openness of the TCP/IP Internet protocols. The web keeps running under the same principle of open source. And two-thirds of web servers are operated by Apache, an open-source server program.
• Institutional change in the management of the Internet, keeping it under the loose management of the global Internet community, privatizing it, and allowing both commercial uses and cooperative uses.
• Major changes in social structure, culture, and social behavior: networking as a prevalent organizational form; individuation as the main orientation of social behavior; and the culture of autonomy as the culture of the network society.

I will elaborate on these major trends.

Our society is a network society; that is, a society constructed around personal and organizational networks powered by digital networks and communicated by the Internet. And because networks are global and know no boundaries, the network society is a global network society. This historically specific social structure resulted from the interaction between the emerging technological paradigm based on the digital revolution and some major sociocultural changes. A primary dimension of these changes is what has been labeled the rise of the Me-centered society, or, in sociological terms, the process of individuation, the decline of community understood in terms of space, work, family, and ascription in general. This is not the end of community, and not the end of place-based interaction, but there is a shift toward the reconstruction of social relationships, including strong cultural and personal ties that could be considered a form of community, on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects.

The process of individuation is not just a matter of cultural evolution, it is materially produced by the new forms of organizing economic activities, and social and political life, as I analyzed in my trilogy on the Information Age (Castells 1996–2003). It is based on the transformation of space (metropolitan life), work and economic activity (rise of the networked enterprise and networked work processes), culture and communication (shift from mass communication based on mass media to mass self-communication based on the Internet); on the crisis of the patriarchal family, with increasing autonomy of its individual members; the substitution of media politics for mass party politics; and globalization as the selective networking of places and processes throughout the planet.

But individuation does not mean isolation, or even less the end of community. Sociability is reconstructed as networked individualism and community through a quest for like-minded individuals in a process that combines online interaction with offline interaction, cyberspace and the local space. Individuation is the key process in constituting subjects (individual or collective), networking is the organizational form constructed by these subjects; this is the network society, and the form of sociability is what Rainie and Wellman (2012) conceptualized as networked individualism. Network technologies are of course the medium for this new social structure and this new culture (Papacharissi 2010).

As stated above, academic research has established that the Internet does not isolate people, nor does it reduce their sociability; it actually increases sociability, as shown by myself in my studies in Catalonia (Castells 2007), Rainie and Wellman in the United States (2012), Cardoso in Portugal (2010), and the World Internet Survey for the world at large (Center for the Digital Future 2012 et al.). Furthermore, a major study by Michael Willmott for the British Computer Society (Trajectory Partnership 2010) has shown a positive correlation, for individuals and for countries, between the frequency and intensity of the use of the Internet and the psychological indicators of personal happiness. He used global data for 35,000 people obtained from the World Wide Survey of the University of Michigan from 2005 to 2007. Controlling for other factors, the study showed that Internet use empowers people by increasing their feelings of security, personal freedom, and influence, all feelings that have a positive effect on happiness and personal well-being. The effect is particularly positive for people with lower income and who are less qualified, for people in the developing world, and for women. Age does not affect the positive relationship; it is significant for all ages. Why women? Because they are at the center of the network of their families, Internet helps them to organize their lives. Also, it helps them to overcome their isolation, particularly in patriarchal societies. The Internet also contributes to the rise of the culture of autonomy.

The key for the process of individuation is the construction of autonomy by social actors, who become subjects in the process. They do so by defining their specific projects in interaction with, but not submission to, the institutions of society. This is the case for a minority of individuals, but because of their capacity to lead and mobilize they introduce a new culture in every domain of social life: in work (entrepreneurship), in the media (the active audience), in the Internet (the creative user), in the market (the informed and proactive consumer), in education (students as informed critical thinkers, making possible the new frontier of e-learning and m-learning pedagogy), in health (the patient-centered health management system) in e-government (the informed, participatory citizen), in social movements (cultural change from the grassroots, as in feminism or environmentalism), and in politics (the independent-minded citizen able to participate in self-generated political networks).

There is increasing evidence of the direct relationship between the Internet and the rise of social autonomy. From 2002 to 2007 I directed in Catalonia one of the largest studies ever conducted in Europe on the Internet and society, based on 55,000 interviews, one-third of them face to face (IN3 2002–07). As part of this study, my collaborators and I compared the behavior of Internet users to non-Internet users in a sample of 3,000 people, representative of the population of Catalonia. Because in 2003 only about 40 percent of people were Internet users we could really compare the differences in social behavior for users and non-users, something that nowadays would be more difficult given the 79 percent penetration rate of the Internet in Catalonia. Although the data are relatively old, the findings are not, as more recent studies in other countries (particularly in Portugal) appear to confirm the observed trends. We constructed scales of autonomy in different dimensions. Only between 10 and 20 percent of the population, depending on dimensions, were in the high level of autonomy. But we focused on this active segment of the population to explore the role of the Internet in the construction of autonomy. Using factor analysis we identified six major types of autonomy based on projects of individuals according to their practices:

a) professional development b) communicative autonomy c) entrepreneurship d) autonomy of the body e) sociopolitical participation f) personal, individual autonomy

These six types of autonomous practices were statistically independent among themselves. But each one of them correlated positively with Internet use in statistically significant terms, in a self-reinforcing loop (time sequence): the more one person was autonomous, the more she/he used the web, and the more she/he used the web, the more autonomous she/he became (Castells et al. 2007). This is a major empirical finding. Because if the dominant cultural trend in our society is the search for autonomy, and if the Internet powers this search, then we are moving toward a society of assertive individuals and cultural freedom, regardless of the barriers of rigid social organizations inherited from the Industrial Age. From this Internet-based culture of autonomy have emerged a new kind of sociability, networked sociability, and a new kind of sociopolitical practice, networked social movements and networked democracy. I will now turn to the analysis of these two fundamental trends at the source of current processes of social change worldwide.

The Rise of Social Network Sites on the Internet

Since 2002 (creation of Friendster, prior to Facebook) a new socio-technical revolution has taken place on the Internet: the rise of social network sites where now all human activities are present, from personal interaction to business, to work, to culture, to communication, to social movements, and to politics.

Social Network Sites are web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

(Boyd and Ellison 2007, 2)

Social networking uses, in time globally spent, surpassed e-mail in November 2007. It surpassed e-mail in number of users in July 2009. In terms of users it reached 1 billion by September 2010, with Facebook accounting for about half of it. In 2013 it has almost doubled, particularly because of increasing use in China, India, and Latin America. There is indeed a great diversity of social networking sites (SNS) by countries and cultures. Facebook, started for Harvard-only members in 2004, is present in most of the world, but QQ, Cyworld, and Baidu dominate in China; Orkut in Brazil; Mixi in Japan; etc. In terms of demographics, age is the main differential factor in the use of SNS, with a drop of frequency of use after 50 years of age, and particularly 65. But this is not just a teenager’s activity. The main Facebook U.S. category is in the age group 35–44, whose frequency of use of the site is higher than for younger people. Nearly 60 percent of adults in the U.S. have at least one SNS profile, 30 percent two, and 15 percent three or more. Females are as present as males, except when in a society there is a general gender gap. We observe no differences in education and class, but there is some class specialization of SNS, such as Myspace being lower than FB; LinkedIn is for professionals.

Thus, the most important activity on the Internet at this point in time goes through social networking, and SNS have become the chosen platforms for all kind of activities, not just personal friendships or chatting, but for marketing, e-commerce, education, cultural creativity, media and entertainment distribution, health applications, and sociopolitical activism. This is a significant trend for society at large. Let me explore the meaning of this trend on the basis of the still scant evidence.

Social networking sites are constructed by users themselves building on specific criteria of grouping. There is entrepreneurship in the process of creating sites, then people choose according to their interests and projects. Networks are tailored by people themselves with different levels of profiling and privacy. The key to success is not anonymity, but on the contrary, self-presentation of a real person connecting to real people (in some cases people are excluded from the SNS when they fake their identity). So, it is a self-constructed society by networking connecting to other networks. But this is not a virtual society. There is a close connection between virtual networks and networks in life at large. This is a hybrid world, a real world, not a virtual world or a segregated world.

People build networks to be with others, and to be with others they want to be with on the basis of criteria that include those people who they already know (a selected sub-segment). Most users go on the site every day. It is permanent connectivity. If we needed an answer to what happened to sociability in the Internet world, here it is:

There is a dramatic increase in sociability, but a different kind of sociability, facilitated and dynamized by permanent connectivity and social networking on the web.

Based on the time when Facebook was still releasing data (this time is now gone) we know that in 2009 users spent 500 billion minutes per month. This is not just about friendship or interpersonal communication. People do things together, share, act, exactly as in society, although the personal dimension is always there. Thus, in the U.S. 38 percent of adults share content, 21 percent remix, 14 percent blog, and this is growing exponentially, with development of technology, software, and SNS entrepreneurial initiatives. On Facebook, in 2009 the average user was connected to 60 pages, groups, and events, people interacted per month to 160 million objects (pages, groups, events), the average user created 70 pieces of content per month, and there were 25 billion pieces of content shared per month (web links, news stories, blogs posts, notes, photos). SNS are living spaces connecting all dimensions of people’s experience. This transforms culture because people share experience with a low emotional cost, while saving energy and effort. They transcend time and space, yet they produce content, set up links, and connect practices. It is a constantly networked world in every dimension of human experience. They co-evolve in permanent, multiple interaction. But they choose the terms of their co-evolution.

Thus, people live their physical lives but increasingly connect on multiple dimensions in SNS.

Paradoxically, the virtual life is more social than the physical life, now individualized by the organization of work and urban living.

But people do not live a virtual reality, indeed it is a real virtuality, since social practices, sharing, mixing, and living in society is facilitated in the virtuality, in what I called time ago the “space of flows” (Castells 1996).

Because people are increasingly at ease in the multi-textuality and multidimensionality of the web, marketers, work organizations, service agencies, government, and civil society are migrating massively to the Internet, less and less setting up alternative sites, more and more being present in the networks that people construct by themselves and for themselves, with the help of Internet social networking entrepreneurs, some of whom become billionaires in the process, actually selling freedom and the possibility of the autonomous construction of lives. This is the liberating potential of the Internet made material practice by these social networking sites. The largest of these social networking sites are usually bounded social spaces managed by a company. However, if the company tries to impede free communication it may lose many of its users, because the entry barriers in this industry are very low. A couple of technologically savvy youngsters with little capital can set up a site on the Internet and attract escapees from a more restricted Internet space, as happened to AOL and other networking sites of the first generation, and as could happen to Facebook or any other SNS if they are tempted to tinker with the rules of openness (Facebook tried to make users pay and retracted within days). So, SNS are often a business, but they are in the business of selling freedom, free expression, chosen sociability. When they tinker with this promise they risk their hollowing by net citizens migrating with their friends to more friendly virtual lands.

Perhaps the most telling expression of this new freedom is the transformation of sociopolitical practices on the Internet.

Communication Power: Mass-Self Communication and the Transformation of Politics

Power and counterpower, the foundational relationships of society, are constructed in the human mind, through the construction of meaning and the processing of information according to certain sets of values and interests (Castells 2009).

Ideological apparatuses and the mass media have been key tools of mediating communication and asserting power, and still are. But the rise of a new culture, the culture of autonomy, has found in Internet and mobile communication networks a major medium of mass self-communication and self-organization.

The key source for the social production of meaning is the process of socialized communication. I define communication as the process of sharing meaning through the exchange of information. Socialized communication is the one that exists in the public realm, that has the potential of reaching society at large. Therefore, the battle over the human mind is largely played out in the process of socialized communication. And this is particularly so in the network society, the social structure of the Information Age, which is characterized by the pervasiveness of communication networks in a multimodal hypertext.

The ongoing transformation of communication technology in the digital age extends the reach of communication media to all domains of social life in a network that is at the same time global and local, generic and customized, in an ever-changing pattern.

As a result, power relations, that is the relations that constitute the foundation of all societies, as well as the processes challenging institutionalized power relations, are increasingly shaped and decided in the communication field. Meaningful, conscious communication is what makes humans human. Thus, any major transformation in the technology and organization of communication is of utmost relevance for social change. Over the last four decades the advent of the Internet and of wireless communication has shifted the communication process in society at large from mass communication to mass self-communication. This is from a message sent from one to many with little interactivity to a system based on messages from many to many, multimodal, in chosen time, and with interactivity, so that senders are receivers and receivers are senders. And both have access to a multimodal hypertext in the web that constitutes the endlessly changing backbone of communication processes.

The transformation of communication from mass communication to mass self-communication has contributed decisively to alter the process of social change. As power relationships have always been based on the control of communication and information that feed the neural networks constitutive of the human mind, the rise of horizontal networks of communication has created a new landscape of social and political change by the process of disintermediation of the government and corporate controls over communication. This is the power of the network, as social actors build their own networks on the basis of their projects, values, and interests. The outcome of these processes is open ended and dependent on specific contexts. Freedom, in this case freedom of communicate, does not say anything on the uses of freedom in society. This is to be established by scholarly research. But we need to start from this major historical phenomenon: the building of a global communication network based on the Internet, a technology that embodies the culture of freedom that was at its source.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century there have been multiple social movements around the world that have used the Internet as their space of formation and permanent connectivity, among the movements and with society at large. These networked social movements, formed in the social networking sites on the Internet, have mobilized in the urban space and in the institutional space, inducing new forms of social movements that are the main actors of social change in the network society. Networked social movements have been particularly active since 2010, and especially in the Arab revolutions against dictatorships; in Europe and the U.S. as forms of protest against the management of the financial crisis; in Brazil; in Turkey; in Mexico; and in highly diverse institutional contexts and economic conditions. It is precisely the similarity of the movements in extremely different contexts that allows the formulation of the hypothesis that this is the pattern of social movements characteristic of the global network society. In all cases we observe the capacity of these movements for self-organization, without a central leadership, on the basis of a spontaneous emotional movement. In all cases there is a connection between Internet-based communication, mobile networks, and the mass media in different forms, feeding into each other and amplifying the movement locally and globally.

These movements take place in the context of exploitation and oppression, social tensions and social struggles; but struggles that were not able to successfully challenge the state in other instances of revolt are now powered by the tools of mass self-communication. It is not the technology that induces the movements, but without the technology (Internet and wireless communication) social movements would not take the present form of being a challenge to state power. The fact is that technology is material culture (ideas brought into the design) and the Internet materialized the culture of freedom that, as it has been documented, emerged on American campuses in the 1960s. This culture-made technology is at the source of the new wave of social movements that exemplify the depth of the global impact of the Internet in all spheres of social organization, affecting particularly power relationships, the foundation of the institutions of society. (See case studies and an analytical perspective on the interaction between Internet and networked social movements in Castells 2012.)

The Internet, as all technologies, does not produce effects by itself. Yet, it has specific effects in altering the capacity of the communication system to be organized around flows that are interactive, multimodal, asynchronous or synchronous, global or local, and from many to many, from people to people, from people to objects, and from objects to objects, increasingly relying on the semantic web. How these characteristics affect specific systems of social relationships has to be established by research, and this is what I tried to present in this text. What is clear is that without the Internet we would not have seen the large-scale development of networking as the fundamental mechanism of social structuring and social change in every domain of social life. The Internet, the World Wide Web, and a variety of networks increasingly based on wireless platforms constitute the technological infrastructure of the network society, as the electrical grid and the electrical engine were the support system for the form of social organization that we conceptualized as the industrial society. Thus, as a social construction, this technological system is open ended, as the network society is an open-ended form of social organization that conveys the best and the worse in humankind. Yet, the global network society is our society, and the understanding of its logic on the basis of the interaction between culture, organization, and technology in the formation and development of social and technological networks is a key field of research in the twenty-first century.

We can only make progress in our understanding through the cumulative effort of scholarly research. Only then we will be able to cut through the myths surrounding the key technology of our time. A digital communication technology that is already a second skin for young people, yet it continues to feed the fears and the fantasies of those who are still in charge of a society that they barely understand.

These references are in fact sources of more detailed references specific to each one of the topics analyzed in this text.

Abbate, Janet. A Social History of the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.

Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13, no. 1 (2007).

Cardoso, Gustavo, Angus Cheong, and Jeffrey Cole (eds). World Wide Internet: Changing Societies, Economies and Cultures. Macau: University of Macau Press, 2009.

Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. 3 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996–2003.

———. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

———. Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

———. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012.

Castells, Manuel, Imma Tubella, Teresa Sancho, and Meritxell Roca.

La transición a la sociedad red. Barcelona: Ariel, 2007.

Hilbert, Martin, and Priscilla López. “The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information.” Science 332, no. 6025 (April 1, 2011): pp. 60–65.

Papacharissi, Zizi, ed. The Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Networking Sites. Routledge, 2010.

Rainie. Lee, and Barry Wellman. Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

Trajectory Partnership (Michael Willmott and Paul Flatters). The Information Dividend: Why IT Makes You “Happier.” Swindon: British Informatics Society Limited, 2010. http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/info-dividend-full-report.pdf

Selected Web References.   Used as sources for analysis in the chapter

Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento. “Observatório de Sociedade da Informação e do Conhecimento (OSIC).” http://www.umic.pt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3026&Itemid=167

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. “Features, Press and Policy.” http://www.bcs.org/category/7307

Center for the Digital Future. The World Internet Project International Report. 4th ed. Los Angeles: USC Annenberg School, Center for the Digital Future, 2012. http://www.worldinternetproject.net/_files/_Published/_oldis/770_2012wip_report4th_ed.pdf

ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council). “Papers and Reports.” Virtual Society. http://virtualsociety.sbs.ox.ac.uk/reports.htm

Fundación Orange. “Análisis y Prospectiva: Informe eEspaña.” Fundación Orange. http://fundacionorange.es/fundacionorange/analisisprospectiva.html

Fundación Telefónica. “Informes SI.” Fundación Telefónica. http://sociedadinformacion.fundacion.telefonica.com/DYC/SHI/InformesSI/seccion=1190&idioma=es_ES.do

IN3 (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute). UOC. “Project Internet Catalonia (PIC): An Overview.” Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, 2002–07. http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic/eng/

International Telecommunication Union. “Annual Reports.” http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/sfo/annual_reports/index.html

Nielsen Company. “Reports.” 2013. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/reports/2013.html?tag=Category:Media+ and+Entertainment

Oxford Internet Surveys. “Publications.” http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/oxis/publications

Pew Internet & American Life Project. “Social Networking.” Pew Internet. http://www.pewinternet.org/Topics/Activities-and-Pursuits/Social-Networking.aspx?typeFilter=5

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• CORRESPONDENCE
• 21 May 2024

Internet use and teen mental health: it’s about more than just screen time

• Linxiao Zhang 0

University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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Candice Odgers writes that more research is needed on the effects of social media on adolescents’ mental well-being ( Nature 628 , 29–30; 2024 ). She and others have extensively discussed methodologies for establishing causal effects (see C. L. Odgers and M. R. Jensen J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 61 , 336–348; 2020 ), but other aspects also need further nuanced consideration.

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Nature 629 , 757 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01489-4

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• Internet Seen as Positive Influence on Education but Negative on Morality in Emerging and Developing Nations

Internet Usage More Common Among the Young, Well-Educated and English Speakers

Table of contents.

• 1. Communications Technology in Emerging and Developing Nations
• 2. Online Activities in Emerging and Developing Nations
• 3. Influence of Internet in Emerging and Developing Nations
• Methods in Detail

As more people around the world gain access to all the tools of the digital age, the internet will play a greater role in everyday life. And so far, people in emerging and developing nations say that the increasing use of the internet has been a good influence in the realms of education, personal relationships and the economy. But despite all the benefits of these new technologies, on balance people are more likely to say that the internet is a negative rather than a positive influence on morality, and they are divided about its effect on politics.

Publics in emerging and developing nations are more convinced that the internet is having a negative effect on morality. A median of 42% say it is a bad influence on morality, while only 29% see the internet as a good influence. And in no country surveyed does a majority say that the internet’s influence on morality is a positive.

However, many in these emerging and developing nations are left out of the internet revolution entirely. A median of less than half across the 32 countries surveyed use the internet at least occasionally, through either smartphones or other devices, though usage rates vary considerably. Computer ownership also varies, from as little as 3% in Uganda to 78% in Russia.

But accessing the internet no longer requires a fixed line to a computer, and in many nations cell phones are nearly universal, while landlines are almost unheard of. In some countries, such as Chile and China, smartphone usage rates are comparable to that of the United States.

Internet access and smartphone ownership rates in these emerging and developing nations are greatest among the well-educated and the young, i.e. those 18- to 34-year-olds who came of age in an era of massive technological advancement. People who read or speak English are also more likely to access the internet, even when holding constant other key factors, such as age and education. 1 Overall, across the countries surveyed, internet access rates are higher in richer, more developed economies.

Once online, internet users in emerging and developing nations have embraced socializing as their most preferred type of digital activity. Majorities of internet users in all countries surveyed with large enough sample sizes to analyze say they stay in touch with friends and family online. Many also use cyberspace for getting information about politics, health care and government services. Less common are commercial and career activities, such as searching or applying for a job, making or receiving payments, buying products and taking online classes.

Social networkers in these countries share information on popular culture, such as music, movies and sports. To a lesser extent, they share views about commercial products, politics and religion. Regardless of what internet users choose to do online, most in these emerging and developing countries are doing it daily.

These are among the main findings of a Pew Research Center survey conducted among 36,619 people in 32 emerging and developing countries from March 17 to June 5, 2014. All interviews were conducted face-to-face. Comparison figures from the U.S. are from a Pew Research telephone survey conducted April 22 to May 11, 2014, among 1,002 people, unless otherwise noted.

Internet Influence Seen as Positive on Education, Negative on Morality

A clear majority of people in these emerging and developing countries see the internet as a positive influence on education. A median of 64% among the general population (including non-internet users) in the 32 emerging and developing nations surveyed say the internet is a good influence on education. People are also keen on the internet and its influence on personal relationships (53% good influence) and the economy (52%). Few people say that the internet has no influence on these aspects of life.

Publics are less enthused about the internet’s effect on politics. A median of just 36% say it is a positive for their country’s political system, while three-in-ten say it is a bad influence.

Generally, people who have access to the internet are more positive about its societal influence. For example, 65% of internet users in these emerging and developing nations say the increasing use of the internet is a positive for personal relationships, while only 44% of non-internet users agree. Similar gaps appear on the positive influence of the internet on education, the economy and politics.

Highly educated respondents are also more likely to say the internet is a positive influence. Six-in-ten of those with a secondary education or more say the increasing use of the internet is a good influence on personal relationships, compared with 44% among people with less education.

Internet Access Lacking in Many Countries, but More Common in Wealthier Nations

Even as general publics see the influence of the internet increase in their everyday lives, there are still many people without access to the internet in these emerging and developing countries. Across the 32 nations surveyed, a median of 44% use the internet at least occasionally, either through smartphones or other devices. Comparatively, as of early 2014, 87% of adults in the U.S. use the internet, according to Pew Research Center studies .

Access rates vary considerably across the emerging and developing nations surveyed. Two-thirds or more in Chile (76%), Russia (73%) and Venezuela (67%) have access to the internet, as do six-in-ten or more in Poland, China, Lebanon and Argentina. Yet less than half in Vietnam (43%) and the Philippines (42%) have internet access. And in nations that are less economically developed, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, internet access rates lag even further.

Toward the bottom in terms of access rates are some of the world’s most heavily populated nations in South and Southeast Asia. These include Indonesia, where only 24% of the population has access to the internet, India (20%), Bangladesh (11%) and Pakistan (8%). Combined, these countries account for approximately a quarter of the world’s population.

[ps_interactive id=”32288″ showtitle=”h3″]

For example, 70% of young Vietnamese (18-34 years old) use the internet, while only 21% of those age 35 and older do. And three-quarters of Vietnamese with a secondary education or higher have access to the net, while only two-in-ten with less than a secondary education do. A similar gap appears for Vietnamese who can speak or read at least some English (83%) versus those who cannot (20%).

In addition to these factors, having a higher income, being male and being employed have a significant, positive impact on internet use, though to a lesser degree.

Socializing Most Popular Form of Internet Activity

Along with social networking, an equally popular use of the internet is staying in touch with friends and family. A median of 86% of internet users across the emerging and developing nations surveyed say they have used the internet this way in the past year.

While not as popular as socializing, many internet users also like to access digital information, whether it is political (a median of 54% among internet users), medical (46%) or governmental (42%). Getting online political news is particularly prevalent in Middle Eastern countries, like Tunisia (72%), Lebanon (70%) and Egypt (68%).

Utilizing the internet for career and commerce is a less popular activity. Among internet users, medians of less than four-in-ten say they look and apply for jobs (35%), make or receive payments (22%), buy products (16%) or take online classes (13%).

In certain countries, these professional and commercial online activities are more common. For example, 62% of internet users in Bangladesh and 55% in India say they have used the internet to look for or apply for a job. In China, home to internet commerce giants such as Baidu and Alibaba, 52% of internet users say they have purchased a product online in the last year.

Sharing information about personal views regarding religion and politics and purchases is less common. Less than four-in-ten social networkers in emerging and developing nations say they share views about products (37%), politics (34%) and religion (30%). But there is a range of interest in debating these topics online, from the 8% among social networkers in Russia and Ukraine who discuss religion to the 64% in Jordan who say the same. Similar ranges can be found for sharing views about politics and products on social networks.

Smartphones Have Not Yet Replaced Regular Mobile Phones

In several of the countries surveyed, sizeable percentages access the internet from devices other than a computer in their home. Across the 32 emerging and developing nations, a median of 38% have a working computer in their household. In 10 countries, computer ownership is roughly two-in-ten or less. By contrast, 80% in the U.S. and 78% in Russia have a computer in working order in their house.

But smartphones – and the mobile access to the internet that they make possible in some locations – are not nearly as common as conventional cell phones. A median of only 24% say they own a cell phone that can access the internet and applications (See Appendix B for a full list of devices in each country). In the U.S., 58% owned a smartphone as of early 2014.

These cell phones and smartphones are critical as communication tools in most of the emerging and developing nations, mainly because the infrastructure for landline communications is sparse, and in many instances almost nonexistent. In these emerging and developing nations, only a median of 19% have a working landline telephone in their home. In fact, in many African and Asian countries, landline penetration is in the low single digits. This compares with 60% landline ownership in the U.S.

Cell phones also have the added benefit of being capable of more than just vocal communication. Among cell phone owners across the 32 countries, 76% use text messaging via their phones. This is similar to the 83% of cell owners in the U.S. who text. And an additional 55% of mobile owners in these emerging and developing nations use their phones for taking pictures or video.

• For more on how these demographics influence internet use, see Appendix A. For a list of countries surveyed, including the smartphone devices and social networks specified in our questions in each country, see Appendix B. ↩

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Home — Essay Samples — Information Science and Technology — Internet — The Positive And Negative Effects Of Internet

The Positive and Negative Effects of Internet

• Categories: Advantages of Technology Internet Negative Impact of Technology

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Words: 896 |

Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 896 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Brown, J. D., & Bobkowski, P. S. (2011). Older and newer media: Patterns of use and effects on adolescents' health and well-being. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 95-113.
• Chen, W., & Lee, K. H. (2013). Sharing, liking, commenting, and distressed? The pathway between Facebook interaction and psychological distress. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16(10), 728-734.
• Greenfield, P. M., & Yan, Z. (2006). Children, adolescents, and the Internet: A new field of inquiry in developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology, 42(3), 391-394.
• Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., & Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 53(9), 1017-1031.
• Lenhart, A., Ling, R., Campbell, S., & Purcell, K. (2010). Teens and mobile phones. Pew Research Center.
• Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A., & Ólafsson, K. (2011). Risks and safety on the Internet: The perspective of European children: Full findings and policy implications from the EU Kids Online survey of 9-16 year olds and their parents in 25 countries. EU Kids Online, London School of Economics and Political Science.
• Rosen, L. D., Whaling, K., Rab, S., Carrier, L. M., & Cheever, N. A. (2013). Is Facebook creating “iDisorders”? The link between clinical symptoms of psychiatric disorders and excessive online social networking. Journal of Adolescent Health, 52(5), 630-636.
• Shapira, N. A., Goldsmith, T. D., Keck Jr, P. E., Khosla, U. M., & McElroy, S. L. (2000). Psychiatric features of individuals with problematic internet use. Journal of Affective Disorders, 57(1-3), 267-272.
• Valkenburg, P. M., Peter, J., & Schouten, A. P. (2006). Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents' well-being and social self-esteem. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(5), 584-590.
• Ybarra, M. L., & Mitchell, K. J. (2004). Online aggressor/targets, aggressors, and targets: A comparison of associated youth characteristics. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(7), 1308-1316.

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• Advantages And Disadvantages Of Internet Essay

Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Essay

500+ words advantages and disadvantages of internet essay.

The internet plays a significant role in the lives of people today. It is a valuable source of information that helps people share information and communicate with anyone sitting in any corner of the country with an internet connection. But, with many advantages, there are also disadvantages to the internet. With the help of ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet’ essay, we will throw light on both these aspects. We have also compiled a list of CBSE Essays for students to boost their essay-writing skills. It contains sample essays on several topics, which will give ideas to students and help them write effective essays.

Advantages of the Internet

The role of the internet in the modern world cannot be understated. Nowadays, every person uses the internet to do their daily tasks. People in different fields like offices, schools, colleges, hospitals etc., use their electronic devices like laptops, computers, tablets, cell phones etc., to make their work simple and fast. The internet has also made access to information easier. We can learn about the whole universe with just a single click by using the internet. We can easily communicate and share information with other people around the world with the help of email, instant messaging, video calls etc.

The internet delivers a wide variety of advantages. It not only enables people to share information but also serves as a place to store information and media digitally. This feature has benefitted the fields of education and research the most. We have seen a boom in the e-commerce business as they have used the internet and provided a seamless experience of buying and selling products online. It has created a large market for online retailers and integrated different business fields. Due to this facility, people can now purchase almost everything they need and get it delivered right to their doorstep in a few days. Many services are now provided on the internet, such as online booking, banking, hotel reservations etc.

The internet has made everything a lot more accessible and quick. Most organisations around the world advertise their vacancies on the internet. So, people can search for different types of jobs around the world. The internet provides different types of entertainment to people; be it music, movies, theatre, entertainment, live matches, or live broadcasts. It also helps students to continue their learning through online education.

It is difficult to name all of the benefits and advantages of the internet. This is because the internet has become so entangled and integrated into our daily lives that it has an influence on everything we experience around us.

Disadvantages of the Internet

Although the internet has many advantages, it also has some disadvantages. In the next section of the advantages and disadvantages of the internet essay, let us discuss the disadvantages and the possible risks associated with the modern-day applications of the internet.

While the internet provides us with all tools, products and services we need right at our doorstep, at the same time, it isolates us from the world outside. As we get more accustomed to ordering everything online, be it clothes, food, drinks, grocery, commodities, or even paying bills, getting out of the house has become less frequent. This has caused health issues and various mental health issues such as social anxiety, insomnia and even depression. Teenagers and kids are the most influenced by the internet as they are the generation which has seen the immense use of the internet. They are moulded to a life dependent on the internet. This hinders their learning capabilities and real-life problem-solving skills because they are accustomed to using their mobile for every task.

Today, the internet is the most popular source of viruses in electronic gadgets. As we perform various activities on the internet, we are exposing ourselves to various threats such as malicious software and viruses. Due to these viruses, confidential data may be accessed by unauthorised people or hackers. Some websites contain immoral materials in the form of text, pictures or movies. These websites damage the character of the new generation, especially kids and teenagers. A lot of time is wasted collecting information on the internet. Many people become addicted to spending time on the internet, like chatting with friends or playing games. A lot of information about a particular topic is stored on websites. Some information may be incorrect or not authentic. So, it becomes difficult to select the correct information.

From the information covered in this advantages and disadvantages essay, it can be said that the benefits of the internet outweigh the disadvantages and threats it brings. The responsibility to be safe falls on the users themselves. One needs to stay vigilant and perform regular security checks on their network and computing devices to ensure they are secure from any online attacks. Provided that all government regulations for safe internet browsing are followed and appropriate measures are taken.

Students must have found the ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet’ essay useful for improving their essay writing skills. Visit BYJU’S website to get the latest updates and study materials for CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams.

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What are the disadvantages of the Internet?

Although the Internet is one of man's greatest creations, it has many disadvantages, several of which are listed in the following sections.

Trolls, bullying, and stalkers

Anyone who has spent time on the Internet has encountered trolls or abusive people. With the anonymous nature of the Internet, it's easier for people to be mean because they feel they won't face the repercussions.

Cyberbullying

Another growing issue, especially with kids in school, is cyberbullying . Because it's easier to be anonymous on the Internet, a person may bully others who are also online.

• Protect children from harmful material and people on the Internet.

With people sharing more information about themselves and their families on the Internet, it can be easier for stalkers to find personal information.

• How to be anonymous on the Internet.

Pornographic and violent images

In our digital age, there's a nearly an infinite amount of content on the Internet. While there are amazing resources, such as Wikipedia , less desirable content also exists. Consequently, users can accidentally find violent, pornographic, or bad images that they may not want to view.

• Is online porn illegal?

Addiction, time-waster, and causes distractions

Surfing and playing games on the Internet can quickly become very addictive. Doing so can lead to spending a lot of frivolous time on the Internet instead of doing something productive. On this same note, the Internet can be bad for workplace productivity as well.

See our computer addiction page for further information about and help with computer addiction.

• What things to do when bored on the Internet.

Never being able to disconnect from work

The Internet is great for giving its users the ability to work from anywhere. However, you may be expected to be available to work at any time of the day, even if you had not previously agreed to be available.

For example, you may be at home and get a notification of an important work-related e-mail and end up working without getting paid.

• How to work from home.

Crime, identity theft, hacking, viruses, and cheating

With access to billions of computers, computer hackers and malicious users can hack accounts and steal personal information that could be used for identity theft . The Internet also connects all computers, so hackers can scan millions of computers and quickly identify what computers are vulnerable to attack.

Hidden places also exist on the Internet and the deep web for criminals to conduct business without as much fear of being caught. A global audience also gives criminals more ways to solicit their goods.

The Internet also enables students to cheat on their studies or find others on the Internet to do their homework.

• Computer crime information and a list of the types of computer crime.
• How to protect yourself while on the Internet.

Spam and advertising

It's great that the Internet allows access to a much wider audience than traditional advertising methods (e.g., newspaper, TV, and radio). However, because digital advertising can be sent on a massive scale, you might see more spam in your inbox than junk mail in real life.

• How to stop spam.

Affects focus and patience

The sites we use on the Internet every day have an "instant gratification" effect. They also present an endless menu of things to think about and experience at any moment, on-demand. Getting information this way rewards fast-paced thinking that shifts focus quickly, which affects your interactions in general, making you more impatient and less focused on your activities. Try to balance this natural effect with time away from social media and focused on more productive real-life activities like exercise or cleaning.

Depression, loneliness, and social isolation

Social networking sites can also lead to depression as many people tend to compare their lives with others. For example, if your social network friends have vacation pictures, you may get the false impression that everyone but you is going on vacation.

The Internet and online games can be very addictive and time-consuming, and spending too much time with your virtual friends may take away from your real-life friends.

Health issues and obesity

As with watching TV, spending too much time on the computer, surfing the Internet, or playing games can also lead to obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle.

A computer also requires a lot of repetitive movement can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome. For example, moving your hand from your keyboard to a mouse and typing are all repetitive actions, which can cause injuries. Taking breaks, keeping the proper posture , and understanding computer ergonomics can all help delay or prevent these injuries.

• How to protect your eyes when using a computer.

Echo chambers, filter bubbles, and personalized content

The Internet has new information added every second, and it would be impossible for anyone to keep up-to-date with the latest news and information. So, companies have developed algorithms that help sort and give you information they feel you'd find most helpful or interesting. Unfortunately, because these algorithms show you personalized information, they create an artificial bubble that can be hard to escape.

These bubbles can also be amplified when participating in social networks. If your social circles of family and friends all share similar content from their bubbles, your social circle can become an echo chamber of everyone sharing the same thoughts.

While it's easier to find interesting information and news by existing in an online bubble, you're also not introduced to opposing views and new concepts. It's also believed by many experts that these bubbles make people more polarized because they only see news tailored to them that's often more sensationalized to help get more visitors.

In the past, a person would need to create a website to post information online. Because of the difficulty and cost involved, not many people posted information online. Today, with blogs and social network sites, it's possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post their thoughts online with little or no cost. Some people and some governments take advantage of how easy it is to create sites that spread lies or other fake news.

• How to know if a news story is fake news.

Buying things you don't need

The Internet reduces the barriers for consumers to make purchases, so users may find themselves purchasing products without putting much thought into whether they should. Also, for some people, buying items on the Internet can become so addictive that it causes serious debt.

Related information

• What are the advantages of the Internet?
• What are the disadvantages of using a computer?
• Internet help and support.

Essay on Uses of Internet – Advantages and Disadvantages

Essay on uses of Internet – advantages, and disadvantages: – The Internet is one of the best gifts of science. It has made our life and lifestyle much easier than before. Today Team GuideToExam brings to you a number of essays on the internet along with the advantages and disadvantages of the internet.

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Let’s Start…

Table of Contents

Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (50 Words)

The Internet is a modern gift of science to us. In this modern world, we can’t do anything without the use of the internet. We all know the use of the internet in business, online transactions, different official works, etc. Students also use the internet to boost their studies.

But there are both advantages and disadvantages of the internet for students. Some students know how can the internet be used to improve their studies, but due to misuse of the internet some students loss, their valuable time and can’t score well in exams. But we can’t deny the use of the internet in education, business, online transactions, etc.

Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (150 Words)         

The Internet is the greatest invention of science. It helps us in getting every piece of information with a click. We can share information, and get connected with people around the world through the use of the internet.

The Internet is a vast storage of information where we can get a bunch of information from different fields. There are both uses and abuses of the internet. The use of the internet in business has developed the business in modern times.

In today’s world, the use of the internet in education can also be seen. Some advanced schools and colleges in our country have introduced the digital class. It has become possible due to the uses of the internet.

Though there are a lot of advantages of the internet, a few disadvantages of the internet can also be seen. Misuse of the internet has always been a headache for national security. We need to know the proper uses of the internet so we can be beneficial from this modern invention of science.

Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (200 Words )

In today’s world, we use the internet in every walk of our life. About two decades ago there was a question in most people’s minds ‘how can the internet be used’. But in today’s world, the uses of the internet are very common almost in every field.

Today the use of the internet for students has been very common. Students can get online help from different websites, they can opt for online coaching, online courses, etc. use of the internet can be seen in every sphere of life.

It has connected the whole world. The Internet provides us with various moods of communication like email, social networking sites, web and video calls, etc. on the other hand use of the internet in business has brought a revolutionary change to the market.

The Internet has promoted the online marketing platform in the world. Now a businessman can sell his product online from his home.

Though we can point out many advantages of the internet, there are some abuses of the internet too. The misuse of the internet can be seen among some students. They sometimes stick to social networking sites and waste their valuable time.

As a result of that, they don’t get much time for studies.  They should know the proper uses of the internet and should use it for their benefit.

Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (300 Words )

Introduction to internet essay: – The Internet is a modern invention of science that has brought a revolutionary change to our lives. Using the internet, we can access any information from anywhere that has been stored on the web.

In today’s world, we can’t imagine anything without the internet. There are a lot of advantages of the internet, but it is impossible to turn our faces from the disadvantages of the internet.

Uses of the internet: – The internet is used for any purpose. It is used to send emails, online chat, online transactions, share files, access different web pages, etc. On the other hand, in this modern era, a businessman can’t grow his business without the use of the internet in business.

Again the use of the internet in education has completely changed our education system. The use of the internet for students is very necessary as a student can get all his syllabus-oriented information on the web.

Abuses of the internet/ Disadvantages of the internet: – We all know the advantages of the internet. But there are some abuses of the internet too. We can’t deny the fact that the internet has brought a revolutionary change to our lifestyle, but we can’t ignore the disadvantages of the internet.

First of all, a person who spend too much time in from of a computer may fall ill. It may damage his/her eyesight. On the other hand, sometimes the internet can provide us with the wrong information. Because on internet or web anyone can post any information.

So sometimes wrong information can also be posted on the internet. Again hackers may post malicious links and can cause harm to our confidential data. One of the most dangerous disadvantages of the internet in today’s time is fraud business. With the popularity of the internet, we can see rapid growth in the fraud business.

Conclusion to internet essay: – The Internet has made our work easy in every field. With the invention of the internet human civilization has developed a lot. Though there are both advantages and disadvantages of the internet, we can’t deny the fact that the internet has developed us a lot.

Everything depends on its use. We all need to know “how can the internet be used” and should use the internet for our benefit.

Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (400 Words )

Introduction to internet essay: – The Internet has completely changed our lifestyle and the style of our work as well. The invention of the internet has saved our time and reduced our effort in almost every work. The Internet can provide any information to us in no time that has been stored in it. So the question is ‘how can the internet be used?’. In order to use the internet, we require a telephone connection, a computer, and a modem.

Uses of the internet: –  The uses of the internet are immense. Internet is used everywhere such as in schools, colleges, banks, shopping malls, railways, airports, etc. Moreover, we use the internet at home for different purposes. We can access different websites, and social networking sites can make online transactions through the internet.

Different files and information can be shared via emails or messengers. The use of the internet in business has made a different platform for both- buyers and sellers. We have lots of advantages of the internet.

Uses of the internet for students: – The use of the internet for students is like a blessing to them. Students can find any needed information on the web to boost up their studies. Now a day the use of the internet in education is very common. The educational institutions provide internet for students at schools so that their knowledge can be improved.

Abuses of the internet or Disadvantages of the internet: – We can’t decline the fact that the uses of the internet have developed human civilization a lot, But we must agree that we have both advantages and disadvantages of the internet. The abuses of the internet or misuse of the internet can ruin a person at any moment.

Generally, abuses of the internet or internet abuse mean the improper use of the internet. These days teenagers are found addicted to the internet as they spend most of their time on the internet playing online games, surfing social networking sites, etc.

As a result, they are lacking behind in their study. On the other hand, lots of people have become victims of cybercrime. Some anti-social groups use the internet to deceive people through cheating funds. Again hackers may easily access our personal information that has been stored in the internet. Misuse of the internet can spoil our life.

Conclusion to internet essay: –  Excess or misuse of everything is bad. The use of the internet has developed us to a great extent. It has made our life simple, easy, and comfortable as well.

Uses of the internet in education have made us wiser than before, use of the internet in business has formed a different and wider market for us. Misuse of the internet can definitely ruin us but if we use the internet for our benefit, it will make our life easier and more simple in the future.

Long Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (800 Words)

Introduction to internet essay: – The internet is naturally one of the most exciting and brilliant gifts of science to mankind. The invention of the internet and its uses of the internet have radically changed the ways of our life and living standards as well. In today’s world, most of our routine activities are done through the internet.

How can the internet be used: – Everybody knows the uses of the internet. In order to use the internet, we need a telephone connection, a computer, and a modem. We can also use the internet through mobile via hotspot.

  Uses of the internet: – In this modern era, there is hardly any walk of life that is not affected by the internet. Most shops, offices, factories, and service centers use the internet to make their work easier. It is called ‘the storehouse of information. The whole world has been made a global village with the invention of the internet.

The Internet has reduced the load of work from our offices. A huge amount of data can be stored on the internet. We can get each and every information in a click from our doorstep, can communicate with our near and dear ones at any time from anywhere, can make payments online, can buy and sell products online, etc. All these become possible only because of the internet.

Uses of the internet in Education: – The use of the internet in education has brought a remarkable change to our education system. Now a student can have access to any required information on the web.

Earlier it was very difficult for a student to collect data in order to prepare a project on a specific subject. But now it can be found on the web with a click. Moreover, they can share their ideas with their friends through email or social networking sites.

Use of the internet in business: – The use of the internet in business has upgraded the standard of business. In this century it is really hard to imagine an established business without the use of the internet. Now the internet has become a vital tool for marketing and advertising.

The use of the internet in business can boost the business by promoting or advertising the product. It can reach a more targeted audience/buyer/consumers through online promotion. Thus now the day internet is considered very useful in business.

Use of the internet in communication: – The invention of the internet helps a lot in globalization. The whole world is connected directly or indirectly through the internet. In earlier days’ people had to write letters to communicate with others who were not near to them.

But after the invention of the telephone, people could make calls to each other. But then came the internet as the blessing of science and now people can not only talk to each other on phone, but also they can watch each other live sitting at home.

Through social networking sites, we can get in touch with our friends, we can share information, and documents via emails, etc.

Abuses of internet / Disadvantages of the internet: – Does the internet have any disadvantages? YES, there a few disadvantages to the internet. It is very hard to believe that there are a few abuses of internet too. We know that excess of everything is bad. Excess use of the internet can also be harmful to our health.

On the other hand, internet can distract us at our work. Teenagers are seen as addicted to the internet. They spend hour after hour in front of the mobile or computer and waste their valuable time.

The Internet is a source of vast information, simultaneously it offers numerous sources of entertainment too. The major disadvantage of the internet is that sometimes it provides illegal sources of entertainment like pornography, private videos, etc.

People who fall prey to it may get addicted and thus may get distracted from their work. We can get benefited if we can skip the abuses of internet and use it to enhance our knowledge.

Misuse of internet: – There are numerous uses of the internet. But as we discussed earlier there are disadvantages to the internet too. Misuse of the internet may cause serious harm to mankind. One of the main misuses of the internet is Cyberbullying. A fake profile can be made on social networking sites to threaten people.

Anti-social groups or terrorist may use internet to spread anti-social activities. On the other hand, lots of black hate activities take place on the internet. After the invention of internet our personal and official data are accessible in the internet.

Though they are kept protected, the misuse of internet always causes a threat to that confidential information. Hackers may hack those data any may threat to reveal that information in public. Again with the popularity of social networking sites, a new trend of spreading rumors in public is seen these days.

Conclusion to internet essay: – Different people have different opinions on the internet. But we can’t ignore the benefits of internet. It has completely changed our lives and lifestyle as well. Though there are a few disadvantages of the internet too, we need to skip those internet abuses and try to use it for the development of mankind.

Essay on My Mother

Long Essay on Internet advantages and disadvantages (650 Words)

Introduction to internet essay: – internet is one of the modern wonders of science that connects crores of computers across the world. After the invention of the internet, it has become very easy to do our day-to-day activities which took too much time before. With the use of internet, a lots of work can be done in a minute or two.

How can the internet be used: – In today’s world it is not necessary to teach anyone “how can the internet be used?”. Everybody knows how to use internet. Earlier we need a telephone connection, a modem and a computer to use the internet.

Now modern technology has provided us lots of other methods to use the internet. Now we can use the internet through mobile or other modern routers.

Uses of internet: – In this modern era, the internet is used in every walk of life. In the world of communication, internet plays a vital role. With the invention of the internet, communication has become very easy and simple. In earlier days’ letters were the most depended mode of communication.

But it was very time taking. A piece of urgent information can’t be shared through letters. But now we can share information via emails, SMS, or social networking sites within a minute. 

Simultaneously the uses of the internet have reduced the use of paper and paperwork to a great extent. Now information or important documents can be kept on the web or through emails rather than keeping it in the paper. Internet is the storehouse of vast knowledge. We can get any information within a minute on the web.

We can make online transactions, take online courses, book our train-bus-air tickets online, watch videos, share thoughts, ideas using internet.  (But there are both uses and abuses of internet. We will discuss the abuses of the internet or internet abuse separately).

Uses of internet for students: – There are various internet for students. A student can do research online degrees, get involved in part-time jobs, and appear in the mock test using internet. Students need to know the proper uses of internet to get benefited from it.

In the web, students can find various applications and tools that can enhance their studies. In this developing world, educational institutions are seen spending a huge amount of money to set up internet facilities for students at their institutions as they are aware of the various uses of the internet for students.

Use of internet in business: – The uses of internet in business has strengthened the business opportunity and business standard as well. The internet can maximize the profit in business. There are many advantages of using internet in business.

The use of internet for business purpose can create a platform for business. Now a day’s internet is the most powerful tool for advertising and marketing as well. Online advertising is proved to be the best publicity in this century. It can reach more targeted audience rather than manual publicity.

On the other hand, with the use of the internet business meetings can be organized through video conferencing. Again there are lots of tools and software available for accounting and bookkeeping in business. The Internet has introduced a new method of payment i.e. online payment. Now a businessman can sell his product online and can reach a wider market than before.

Abuses of internet / Disadvantages of the internet: – The improper use of internet is known as abuses of the internet. The first and foremost abuses of internet are the excessive use of social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.

The social media is to communicate with our near and dear ones. But some people especially some students spend too much time on those social networking sites and waste their valuable time. Again internet has promoted some cheat funds that have ruined many people.

Conclusion to internet essay: – The Internet has developed mankind to a great extent. We need to use internet for the wellness of mankind.

Essay on uses and abuses of internet (950 Words)

Uses of internet.

The Internet is nowadays a kind of compulsory thing in our daily lives. Uses of the Internet in our daily life have become obligatory. We spend lots of time on the Internet to get an answer to every question which strikes our minds.

We can even fulfill our desire to learn more with the help of the internet. The optimistic use of the Internet makes our lives straightforward and plain. As every single thing on this earth has both its positive and negative sides, the Internet has also got its negative and positive sides.

It is up to us to utilize our time on the internet in a productive manner. While there are various uses of the Internet but you can use the internet for getting an online education. You can use the Internet to promote your business online.

The uses of the internet in education

Nowadays with the help of the internet, we can do online courses and improve our writing. We also get the answer of every answer to every question on the internet is it a question of English or of algebra.

If we want to become flourishing in our career or business the Internet is a miraculous tool, but only the positive and productive use of the Internet will assist us to do so. Students these days are using the Internet to gain knowledge of fresh skills and even to acquire degrees in professional online courses.

Likewise, educators use the Internet for teaching and sharing their knowledge and experience throughout the world with the help of the internet. The internet has changed the lives of students massively.

Students nowadays are starting to use the Internet so that they can learn more and pass the competitive exams or entrance exams. That’s why more than half of the students are coupled with the internet.

Abuses of internet

Cybercrime (use of computers in unlawful doings.): Offenses those are committed against individuals or groups with a criminal purpose to deliberately harm the status/name of the victim or cause physical or mental damage, or loss, to the victim using modern networks such as the Internet.

Cyberbullying: Cyberbullying is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic devices or simply using the internet. Cyberbullying is also known as online bullying. Cyberbullying is when someone bullies or hassles others on social media sites.

Damaging bullying behavior can include posting rumors, threats, and a victim’s personal information on the internet.

Electronic spam: This refers to sending the unwanted advertisement.

Advantages of internet

Internet helps us to boost the speed of our daily tasks. The Internet is used for research and development. The quality of research is developed by Internet tools only. Again the Use of the Internet provides us speedy and free-of-charge communication.

The best thing is that Communication on the Internet is free and fast. We all are linked with each other on social media sites. Social media is common for both personal and professional purposes.

Uses of the internet in money management       

We can use the internet in money management also. The use of the Internet is not limited to only earning money; it can also be used to manage money. Nowadays we can see thousands of apps, websites, etc. that help us in handling daily management, budget planning, transactions, transfers, etc. and this trend is rising gradually.

The use of Internet banking and mobile banking is also rising. All the banks are really functioning tough to provide Internet banking and mobile apps to empower people to utilize the power of the Internet and the latest money management tools. This is helping the common people a lot.

Uses of the internet in business

People also use the internet to promote their business. They sell their products by using various e-commerce solutions on the internet. E-commerce is booming on the internet and we can see new services and creative businesses starting up every single day, which in turn is creating jobs and thereby reducing unemployment. This is helping numerous people to earn money.

Uses of the internet for shopping in our daily life.

Shopping has become a stress-free task now and almost everybody can order products online there’ll be no one to say anything if you see numerous of products still find nothing to be nice to you or simply if you don’t buy anything.

The competitions in online shopping business are obvious. Shopping sites are more interesting because of the huge discounts different companies are offering to the customers also they offer real choice to the customers. The best part is people get attracted to those things more easily.

The customers can pay cash for the product after the delivery also and also can return the product if they don’t like the same. There are numerous online shops where we can buy the things we need in a very cheap rate in comparison to the local shops.

Conclusion to internet essay: –  Internet has completely changed our lifestyle. It has made our works much easier than before. Internet has brought a remarkable change in the world of communication.

Final Words

So we have come to the concluding part of internet essay or essay on internet. In conclusion, we can say that internet and the uses of internet is a very vast topic to discuss. We have tried to cover as much as we can in our essay on internet.

We have also tried to discuss thoroughly on the different related topic such as uses of the internet for students along with advantages and disadvantages of the internet for students and uses of the internet in education.

Abuses of internet, misuse of internet, use of internet in business etc. These essays on internet are composed in such a way that you can also prepare an article on the internet or a speech on the internet and its uses and abuses. Hope these essays helped you.

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2 thoughts on “Essay on Uses of Internet – Advantages and Disadvantages”

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Essay on Uses of Internet for Students and Children

500 words essay on uses of internet.

The Internet has become a sensation nowadays. It is something that humans cannot function without anymore. It has occupied a great part of our lives. We use the internet for almost every little and a big task now. It ranges from searching for a job to listening to music.

The Internet has basically made our lives easier and convenient. The world is at our fingertips now, thanks to the internet. When we see how it has changed the scenario of the modern world, we can’t help but notice its importance. It is used in all spheres of life now.

Internet and Communication

The world has become smaller because of the internet. Now we can communicate with our loved ones oceans away. The days of letter writing are gone where we had to wait for weeks to get a reply. Everything is instant now. Even though telephones allowed us to do that, but the cost was too high. The common man could not afford to call people overseas because of the costs.

However, the internet changed that. Communicating with people both near and far is now easy and affordable. We can send them emails and chat with them through instant messaging apps. We may also video call them using the internet which allows us to see them clearly even though we are miles away.

Furthermore, we can now get instant news updates from all over the world. The moment anything takes place anywhere in the world, we get to know about it. In addition, we are informed about the natural calamities within the correct time. Moreover, we can easily contact our job recruiters using the internet. Job application has been made so much easier through the internet.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Internet and Entertainment

Entertainment and the Internet go hand in hand now. Everything is at your fingertips to enjoy. You can book movie tickets easily on the internet. Gone are the days of waiting in long queues to get the ticket for the latest movie. It can all be done through the comfort of your home. Similarly, you can also book match tickets and concert tickets without going through the hassle of standing in long lines.

In addition, we can now do all our shopping online. You won’t have to go out in the harsh weather to shop for stuff. The Internet allows you to browse through a large assortment of products with all the details given. It ranges from something as small as a mug to a laptop, you can have it all. Furthermore, you may also filter the categories to find exactly what you are looking for within seconds.

Nowadays, web series are quite a hit amongst the youth. They do not watch TV anymore; rather they enjoy the web series. Various platforms have created shows which they release on the internet that has a major fan following. You can get your daily dose of entertainment from the internet now. Whether you want to hear the latest music, you don’t have to spend a hefty amount to buy the CD. You can simply listen to it on the internet.

Thus, we see how the internet has changed and made our lives easy in various ways. We can connect with our loved ones easily and get access to unlimited entertainment instantly.

FAQs on Uses of Internet

Q.1 How does the internet help in communicating?

A.1 We can now communicate with our loved ones using the internet. We can video call them and connect with our relatives living overseas.

Q.2 What does internet offer in terms of entertainment?

A.2 Internet offers us various modes of entertainment. We can watch movies and shows online. We can also book tickets and shop for products online.

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Short Essay on Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In this lesson, you will learn how you can write short essays on the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet. I will write three sets of sample essays here in very simple words for a better understanding of all kinds of students. 

Table of Contents

Short essay on advantages and disadvantages of the internet in 100 words, short essay on advantages and disadvantages of the internet in 200 words, short essay on advantages and disadvantages of the internet in 400 words.

Today any mode of communication happens through the use of the internet. The internet is a gigantic network that connects the entire world and brings the world into our grip. We are aware of everything because of the internet. It has its own merits and demerits. If we think of the advantages of the internet then there are many.

It helps us to connect, learn, contact, and also send messages to the farthest places. Without it, we are simply blind. Again excessive use of the internet is dangerous. It creates an addiction in users and pulls them towards harmful circles. Their lives are destroyed. Too much internet can create mental disorders. So we must be careful in using this useful product and maintain our own safety.

Today modern systems are controlled by the Internet. Without it, we can’t even lead our basic needs. The Internet is a huge global network system that has the following advantages and disadvantages.

The Internet provides us with faster communication to connect with anyone using different calling modes. Businesses are getting benefited because of the communication facility provided by the internet. The internet is now helping in online education as well. Students can now access many books online without spending a penny. Trade and commerce are easier now. Also, we are receiving information every day through online news. Online banking, ordering foods, clothes, medicines, and groceries, all have become easier due to the internet facility.

However, every boon has its own disadvantages as well. Due to excess use of the internet people are becoming lazy and homebound. The greatest problem with the internet is the lack of privacy. At any moment private information can be leaked and exploited to harm others. Youngsters are getting into unnecessary addiction to online games and dangers. Frauds and online looting are daily incidents. Bank details are often getting destroyed and misused. 

Hence we must remember science is supposed to be a boon and not a curse. Humans are given the power to control the world of the Internet and save others from its exploitation. The internet must be used for overall well-being without any harm

The Internet is one of the most useful and important communication setups in our lives. By the internet, we mean a huge global connecting system or a network that joins everyone together in one string. The Internet has lots of facilities as well as disadvantages. Like any scientific invention, it helps in several ways and also destroys our lives. The following advantages and disadvantages are described. 

The greatest gift that the internet has given us is the facility to communicate easily with anyone around the world. Earlier it was impossible to even think about this. But now with the help of the internet, we can chat, make video calls, send voice messages, and also entertain ourselves with different sorts of communication applications. Huge business organisations and other setups are getting lots of facilities due to the internet.

The internet again is used for education. Today online education is a way of learning. Due to the internet, one can surf through Wikipedia and different documents available online and get knowledge of several things in the world. Lots of expensive books can be accessed online through the internet. So it enables many poor children to learn better.

Banking is one of the significant aspects of the internet. Earlier people has to stand in long queues and wait for banking work to be done. But now just sitting at home, one can do any bank work through the internet. Receiving groceries and medicine of any kind online is more accessible due to internet availability. 

However, the internet has several disadvantages and dangerous consequences. The world is extremely open through the internet and so anything can happen at any time. Youngsters get addicted to online games which harms them mentally and physically. They forget their studies and get involved completely in the world of the internet and suffer from severe depression and their future is destroyed. 

Online theft and fraud cases are quite common on the internet. Nowadays all official documents are available online and hence due to online fraud, many people lose their hard-earned money. Banking frauds can also create dangerous results. 

The Internet is also a place with no privacy. So people are criticized often and as a result many commit suicide for trolling. People become extremely harsh on the Internet and this lack of care for the other person pulls them away from nature. 

So it is always advisable to use the internet with caution. Anything that is good can create a disaster at any moment. So a humble use of the internet is the best choice.

Hopefully, after going through this lesson, you have a holistic idea of this topic. If you still have any doubts regarding this context, kindly keep me posted through some quick comments below.

Thank you. 

Paragraph on Uses And Abuses Of Internet

Students are often asked to write a paragraph on Uses And Abuses Of Internet in their schools. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 200-word, and 250-word paragraphs on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

Paragraph on Uses And Abuses Of Internet in 100 Words

The Internet can help us learn new things, play games, and talk to friends. It is like a big library with lots of information. But we should be careful because sometimes people can trick us online. We should always ask our parents before chatting with someone we don’t know. Too much time on the Internet can make us forget to play outside or do our homework. It’s important to use the Internet wisely and not spend all day looking at screens. Remember, the Internet can be fun, but we need to be smart and safe when we use it.

Paragraph on Uses And Abuses Of Internet in 200 Words

The Internet is like a big library on the computer. You can find lots of useful information for school projects, like facts about animals or how plants grow. You can also play fun games and watch videos with your family. But we must be careful when using the Internet. Sometimes, people might try to trick you or make you feel sad by saying mean things. It’s important to always ask a grown-up before talking to someone you don’t know online. Also, spending too much time on the Internet can make your eyes tired and your body feel lazy. It’s good to take breaks and go outside to play with friends or read a book. Remember, the Internet is a helpful tool when used wisely, but we should always be careful and use it responsibly to stay safe and healthy.

Also check:

• Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Internet

Paragraph on Uses And Abuses Of Internet in 250 Words

The internet has many good and bad uses. Good uses include finding information for school projects, talking to friends and family who are far away, and playing educational games. But some people use the internet in bad ways. They might bully others online, look at things that are not okay for kids to see, or even try to trick others into giving them personal information. It’s important to be careful when using the internet and to always ask a grown-up if you’re not sure about something. Remember, the internet can be a helpful tool, but it’s essential to use it responsibly and safely. By being smart online, we can make sure that we’re using the internet in the right way and staying safe while doing so.

That’s it! I hope the paragraphs have helped you.

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Essay on Importance of Internet: Samples for Students

• Updated on  
• Nov 23, 2023

Internet is not just a need or luxury, it has become a household necessity. It was used as a source of entertainment but now it is impossible to work in offices or study without the Internet. When the global pandemic locked everyone in their house, it became an important medium to connect, study and work. Students were able to study without the risk of catching COVID-19 because of the Internet. The importance of the internet is also a common topic in various entrance exams such as SAT , TOEFL , and UPSC . In this blog, you will learn how to write an essay on the importance of the Internet.

This Blog Includes:

Tips to write the perfect essay on internet, sample 1 of essay on the importance of the internet (100 words), sample essay 2 – importance of the internet (150 words), sample essay 3 on use of internet for student (300 words).

Also Read: LNAT Sample Essays

Now the task of essay writing may not always be easy, hence candidates must always know a few tips to write the perfect essay. Mentioned below are a few tips for writing the correct essay:

• Prepare a basic outline to make sure there is continuity and relevance and no break in the structure of the essay
• Follow a given structure. Begin with an introduction then move on to the body which should be detailed and encapsulate the essence of the topic and finally the conclusion for readers to be able to comprehend the essay in a certain manner
• Students can also try to include solutions in their conclusion to make the essay insightful and lucrative to read.

Also Read: UPSC Essay Topics

The last few years have witnessed heavy reliance on the Internet. This has been because of multiple advantages that it has to offer – for instance, reducing work stress and changing the face of communication most importantly. If we take the current scenario, we cannot ignore how important the Internet is in our everyday lives. It is now indeed a challenging task to visualize a world without the internet. One may define the internet as a large library composed of stuff like – records, pictures, websites, and pieces of information. Another sector in which the internet has an undeniably important role to play is the field of communication. Without access to the internet, the ability to share thoughts and ideas across the globe would have also been just a dream. 

Also Read: IELTS Essay Topics

With the significant progress in technology, the importance of the internet has only multiplied with time. The dependence on the internet has been because of multiple advantages that it has to offer – for instance, reducing work stress and changing the face of communication most importantly. By employing the correct usage of the internet, we can find various information about the world. The internet hosts Wikipedia, which is considered to be one of the largest best-composed reference books kept up by a vast community of volunteer scholars and editors from all over the world. Through the internet, one may get answers to all their curiosity.

In the education sector too, it plays a major role, especially taking into consideration the pandemic. The Internet during the pandemic provided an easy alternative to replace the traditional education system and offers additional resources for studying, students can take their classes in the comforts of their homes. Through the internet, they can also browse for classes – lectures at no extra cost. The presence of the Internet is slowly replacing the use of traditional newspapers. It offers various recreational advantages as well. It can be correctly said that the internet plays a great role in the enhancement of quality of life.

Also Read: TOEFL Sample Essays

One may correctly define the 21st century as the age of science and technology. However, this has been possible not only by the efforts of the current generation but also by the previous generation. The result of one such advancement in the field of science and technology is the Internet. What is the Internet? So the internet can be called a connected group of networks that enable electronic communication. It is considered to be the world’s largest communication connecting millions of users.

The dependence on the internet has been because of multiple advantages that it has to offer – for instance, reducing work stress and changing the face of communication most importantly. Given the current scenario, the Internet has become a massive part of our daily lives, and it is now a challenging task to imagine the world without the Internet. The importance of the Internet in the field of communication definitely cannot be ignored.

Without access to the internet, the ability to share thoughts and ideas across the globe would have been just a dream. Today we can talk to people all over the globe only because of services like email, messenger, etc that are heavily reliant on the internet. Without the internet, it would be hard to imagine how large the world would be. The advent of the internet has made the task of building global friendships very easy.

The youth is mainly attracted by entertainment services. Streaming platforms like Amazon , Netflix, and YouTube have also gained immense popularity among internet users over the past few years. The presence of the Internet is slowly replacing the use of traditional newspapers among people too. 

In addition to these, it has various recreational advantages to offer as well. For instance, people can search for fun videos to watch and play games online with friends and other people all over the globe. Hence, we can say the internet holds immense importance in today’s era. Internet technology has indeed changed the dynamics of how we communicate, respond or entertain ourselves. Its importance in everyday life is never-ending. It can be correctly said that the internet plays a great role in the enhancement of quality of life. In the future too, we will see further changes in technology .

Also Read: SAT to Drop Optional Essays and Subject Tests from the Exam

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The internet provides us with facts and data, as well as information and knowledge, to aid in our personal, social, and economic development. The internet has various applications; nevertheless, how we utilize it in our daily lives is determined by our particular needs and ambitions.

Here are five uses of the internet: email; sharing of files; watching movies and listening to songs; research purposes; and education.

The Internet has also altered our interactions with our families, friends, and life partners. Everyone is now connected to everyone else in a more simplified, accessible, and immediate manner; we can conduct part of our personal relationships using our laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

This was all about an essay on importance of Internet. The skill of writing an essay comes in handy when appearing for standardized language tests. Thinking of taking one soon? Leverage Live provides the best online test prep for the same. Register today to know more!

Nikita Puri

Nikita is a creative writer and editor, who is always ready to learn new skills. She has great knowledge about study abroad universities, researching and writing blogs about them. Being a perfectionist, she has a habit of keeping her tasks complete on time before the OCD hits her. When Nikita is not busy working, you can find her eating while binge-watching The office. Also, she breathes music. She has done her bachelor's from Delhi University and her master's from Jamia Millia Islamia.

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The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens

It may only make things worse.

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Smartphones and social media are melting our children’s brains and making them depressed, or so goes the story we are being told. The headlines are constant; it’s enough to make any parent want to shut off every smart device in their home. Fortunately for my kids, who enjoy a good “cat attacks dog” video on TikTok, I go to work each day and see what adolescents are really up to on their devices. And it turns out that the story behind teen social-media use is much different from what most adults think.

I am a developmental psychologist , and for the past 20 years, I have worked to identify how children develop mental illnesses. Since 2008, I have studied 10-to-15-year-olds using their mobile phones, with the goal of testing how a wide range of their daily experiences, including their digital-technology use, influences their mental health. My colleagues and I have repeatedly failed to find compelling support for the claim that digital-technology use is a major contributor to adolescent depression and other mental-health symptoms.

Many other researchers have found the same . In fact, a recent study and a review of research on social media and depression concluded that social media is one of the least influential factors in predicting adolescents’ mental health. The most influential factors include a family history of mental disorder; early exposure to adversity, such as violence and discrimination; and school- and family-related stressors, among others. At the end of last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report concluding, “Available research that links social media to health shows small effects and weak associations, which may be influenced by a combination of good and bad experiences. Contrary to the current cultural narrative that social media is universally harmful to adolescents, the reality is more complicated.”

Read: No one knows exactly what social media is doing to teens

This is why other researchers and I are not buying the stories being told about adolescents and social media. The most recent wave of fear was unleashed by Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation , an excerpt of which appeared in this magazine . Haidt claims that a “phone-based childhood” in the 2010s rewired our children’s brains and caused an epidemic of mental illness, especially among young girls; he’s written about this theme for years .

Of course, Haidt is not alone in asserting that these apps cause such problems. Social media has been compared to heroin use in terms of its impact and has been blamed for things such as declining test scores and young people having less sex .

These stories possess an intuitive appeal—social media is relatively new and makes for an easy scapegoat. But adolescence has always been a time of concern: It is the peak age for the onset of a number of serious mental disorders, and there are many alarming statistics about adolescents’ mental health right now. Caregivers are frightened, and people are just trying to do the right thing for young people. No one wants their children exploited online, or to be fed misinformation or sexually explicit and violent content. Pointing a finger squarely at smartphones and social media offers people common and unlikable enemies. But we simply do not know that these are the right targets.

The reality is that correlational studies to date have generated a mix of small, conflicting, and often confounded associations between social-media use and adolescents’ mental health. The overwhelming majority of them offer no way to sort out cause and effect . When associations are found, things seem to work in the opposite direction from what we’ve been told: Recent research among adolescents —including among young-adolescent girls , along with a large review of 24 studies that followed people over time—suggests that early mental-health symptoms may predict later social-media use, but not the other way around.

Shockingly few experimental studies have specifically tried to test whether reducing social-media use improves mental health. In contrast with the correlational studies above, experimental studies randomize people’s social-media exposure. If done well, they can directly address cause-and-effect questions. I get excited every time one of these studies comes out, hoping I’ll learn something new about social media’s potential impact. But I have also learned to ask a few basic questions of this research before I start to draw conclusions. They’re worth keeping in mind whenever you see a story reporting on these findings:

• Does the study include young adolescents? Most of these studies do not. Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University recently analyzed 27 experimental studies on the effects of social media on mental health conducted since 2013; surprisingly, this was all of the experimental work that could be identified to date. The majority were conducted with adults or college students; only two had participants with an average age of 18, and one small study included adolescents with an average age of 16. None included girls ages 10 to 14—a group that has been at the center of recent debates on this topic. If we are going to make causal claims about social media’s effect on adolescent girls’ mental health, then we need well-designed experimental studies that actually include them.
• Does the study focus on the social-media platforms that young people use today? If not, can we assume that the study’s findings are relevant to the spaces where adolescents spend their time? These studies have tended to observe college students or middle-aged volunteers, many of whom were asked to give up Facebook specifically, and then asked how they felt a few weeks later. (These days, teenagers tend to be on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.)
• What is the outcome that was measured? The conversation right now is about serious mental-health disorders, such as depression and anxiety, as well as suicide. Most studies do not come close to using clinically meaningful measures of these outcomes.

A major problem is that participants are not blind to their condition, and are responding against a backdrop of messaging that social media is bad for them and that taking a break is good. Surprisingly, even given these issues, Ferguson reports that the evidence for causal effects across these experimental studies was statistically no different from zero. In other words, even this research, which was arguably primed to find a maximal link between social media and poor effects on mental health, does not reliably do so.

Listen: The problem with comparing social media to Big Tobacco

These results do not negate the very real fears that people—including the young people that we study —have about social media, nor do they negate the reality that many young people struggle with mental-health problems. Taking a safety-first approach to kids and social media is perfectly reasonable. I certainly believe that Big Tech companies can and should be doing a lot more to design platforms with the needs and best interests of adolescents in mind; I co-authored a report last year saying as much. The surgeon general’s office has also weighed in along these lines. Last May, it released an advisory, “Social Media and Youth Mental Health,” acknowledging that more research is needed in this area, but because “we cannot conclude social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents,” we should mitigate risks by requiring tech companies to emphasize health and safety, supporting digital literacy, developing “ Family Media Plans ,” and prioritizing research on social media’s potential impact. These are reasonable interventions designed to help people without causing undue alarm.

But the problem with the extreme position presented in Haidt’s book and in recent headlines—that digital technology use is directly causing a large-scale mental-health crisis in teenagers—is that it can stoke panic and leave us without the tools we need to actually navigate these complex issues. Two things can be true: first, that the online spaces where young people spend so much time require massive reform, and second, that social media is not rewiring our children’s brains or causing an epidemic of mental illness. Focusing solely on social media may mean that the real causes of mental disorder and distress among our children go unaddressed.

Offline risk —at the community, family, and child levels—continues to be the best predictor of whether children are exposed to negative content and experiences online. Children growing up in families with the fewest resources offline are also less likely to be actively supported by adults as they learn to navigate the online world. If we react to these problems based on fear alone, rather than considering what adolescents actually need, we may only widen this opportunity gap.

We should not send the message to families—and to teens—that social-media use, which is common among adolescents and helpful in many cases, is inherently damaging, shameful, and harmful . It’s not. What my fellow researchers and I see when we connect with adolescents is young people going online to do regular adolescent stuff. They connect with peers from their offline life, consume music and media, and play games with friends. Spending time on YouTube remains the most frequent online activity for U.S. adolescents. Adolescents also go online to seek information about health , and this is especially true if they also report experiencing psychological distress themselves or encounter barriers to finding help offline. Many adolescents report finding spaces of refuge online, especially when they have marginalized identities or lack support in their family and school. Adolescents also report wanting, but often not being able to access, online mental-health services and supports.

All adolescents will eventually need to know how to safely navigate online spaces, so shutting off or restricting access to smartphones and social media is unlikely to work in the long term. In many instances, doing so could backfire: Teens will find creative ways to access these or even more unregulated spaces, and we should not give them additional reasons to feel alienated from the adults in their lives.

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Health Effects of Vaping

At a glance.

Learn more about the health effects of vaping.

• No tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, are safe.
• Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive and is a health danger for pregnant people, developing fetuses, and youth. 1
• Aerosol from e-cigarettes can also contain harmful and potentially harmful substances. These include cancer-causing chemicals and tiny particles that can be inhaled deep into lungs. 1
• E-cigarettes should not be used by youth, young adults, or people who are pregnant. E-cigarettes may have the potential to benefit adults who smoke and are not pregnant if used as a complete substitute for all smoked tobacco products. 2 3 4
• Scientists still have a lot to learn about the short- and long-term health effects of using e-cigarettes.

Most e-cigarettes, or vapes, contain nicotine, which has known adverse health effects. 1

• Nicotine is highly addictive. 1
• Nicotine is toxic to developing fetuses and is a health danger for pregnant people. 1
• Acute nicotine exposure can be toxic. Children and adults have been poisoned by swallowing, breathing, or absorbing vaping liquid through their skin or eyes. More than 80% of calls to U.S. poison control centers for e-cigarettes are for children less than 5 years old. 5

Nicotine poses unique dangers to youth because their brains are still developing.

• Nicotine can harm brain development which continues until about age 25. 1
• Youth can start showing signs of nicotine addiction quickly, sometimes before the start of regular or daily use. 1
• Using nicotine during adolescence can harm the parts of the brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control. 1
• Adolescents who use nicotine may be at increased risk for future addiction to other drugs. 1 6
• Youth who vape may also be more likely to smoke cigarettes in the future. 7 8 9 10 11 12

Other potential harms of e-cigarettes

E-cigarette aerosol can contain substances that can be harmful or potentially harmful to the body. These include: 1

• Nicotine, a highly addictive chemical that can harm adolescent brain development
• Cancer-causing chemicals
• Heavy metals such as nickel, tin, and lead
• Tiny particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs
• Volatile organic compounds
• Flavorings such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to a serious lung disease. Some flavorings used in e-cigarettes may be safe to eat but not to inhale because the lungs process substances differently than the gut.

E-cigarette aerosol generally contains fewer harmful chemicals than the deadly mix of 7,000 chemicals in smoke from cigarettes. 7 13 14 However, this does not make e-cigarettes safe. Scientists are still learning about the immediate and long-term health effects of using e-cigarettes.

Dual use refers to the use of both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes. Dual use is not an effective way to safeguard health. It may result in greater exposure to toxins and worse respiratory health outcomes than using either product alone. 2 3 4 15

Some people who use e-cigarettes have experienced seizures. Most reports to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) have involved youth or young adults. 16 17

E-cigarettes can cause unintended injuries. Defective e-cigarette batteries have caused fires and explosions, some of which have resulted in serious injuries. Most explosions happened when the batteries were being charged.

Anyone can report health or safety issues with tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, through the FDA Safety Reporting Portal .

Health effects of vaping for pregnant people

The use of any tobacco product, including e-cigarettes, is not safe during pregnancy. 1 14 Scientists are still learning about the health effects of vaping on pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. Here's what we know now:

• Most e-cigarettes, or vapes, contain nicotine—the addictive substance in cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products. 18
• Nicotine is a health danger for pregnant people and is toxic to developing fetuses. 1 14
• Nicotine can damage a fetus's developing brain and lungs. 13
• E-cigarette use during pregnancy has been associated with low birth weight and pre-term birth. 19 20

Nicotine addiction and withdrawal

Nicotine is the main addictive substance in tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. With repeated use, a person's brain gets used to having nicotine. This can make them think they need nicotine just to feel okay. This is part of nicotine addiction.

Signs of nicotine addiction include craving nicotine, being unable to stop using it, and developing a tolerance (needing to use more to feel the same). Nicotine addiction can also affect relationships with family and friends and performance in school, at work, or other activities.

When someone addicted to nicotine stops using it, their body and brain have to adjust. This can result in temporary symptoms of nicotine withdrawal which may include:

• Feeling irritable, jumpy, restless, or anxious
• Feeling sad or down
• Having trouble sleeping
• Having a hard time concentrating
• Feeling hungry
• Craving nicotine

Withdrawal symptoms fade over time as the brain gets used to not having nicotine.

Nicotine addiction and mental health

Nicotine addiction can harm mental health and be a source of stress. 21 22 23 24 More research is needed to understand the connection between vaping and mental health, but studies show people who quit smoking cigarettes experience: 25

• Lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress
• Improved positive mood and quality of life

Mental health is a growing concern among youth. 26 27 Youth vaping and cigarette use are associated with mental health symptoms such as depression. 22 28

The most common reason middle and high school students give for currently using e-cigarettes is, "I am feeling anxious, stressed, or depressed." 29 Nicotine addiction or withdrawal can contribute to these feelings or make them worse. Youth may use tobacco products to relieve their symptoms, which can lead to a cycle of nicotine addiction.

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2016. Accessed Feb 14, 2024.
• Goniewicz ML, Smith DM, Edwards KC, et al. Comparison of nicotine and toxicant exposure in users of electronic cigarettes and combustible cigarettes . JAMA Netw Open. 2018;1(8):e185937.
• Reddy KP, Schwamm E, Kalkhoran S, et al. Respiratory symptom incidence among people using electronic cigarettes, combustible tobacco, or both . Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2021;204(2):231–234.
• Smith DM, Christensen C, van Bemmel D, et al. Exposure to nicotine and toxicants among dual users of tobacco cigarettes and e-cigarettes: Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study, 2013-2014 . Nicotine Tob Res. 2021;23(5):790–797.
• Tashakkori NA, Rostron BL, Christensen CH, Cullen KA. Notes from the field: e-cigarette–associated cases reported to poison centers — United States, April 1, 2022–March 31, 2023 . MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:694–695.
• Yuan M, Cross SJ, Loughlin SE, Leslie FM. Nicotine and the adolescent brain . J Physiol. 2015;593(16):3397–3412.
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes . The National Academies Press; 2018.
• Barrington-Trimis JL, Kong G, Leventhal AM, et al. E-cigarette use and subsequent smoking frequency among adolescents . Pediatrics. 2018;142(6):e20180486.
• Barrington-Trimis JL, Urman R, Berhane K, et al. E-cigarettes and future cigarette use . Pediatrics. 2016;138(1):e20160379.
• Bunnell RE, Agaku IT, Arrazola RA, et al. Intentions to smoke cigarettes among never-smoking US middle and high school electronic cigarette users: National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2011-2013 . Nicotine Tob Res. 2015;17(2):228–235.
• Soneji S, Barrington-Trimis JL, Wills TA, et al. Association between initial use of e-cigarettes and subsequent cigarette smoking among adolescents and young adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis . JAMA Pediatr. 2017;171(8):788–797.
• Sun R, Méndez D, Warner KE. Association of electronic cigarette use by U.S. adolescents with subsequent persistent cigarette smoking . JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(3):e234885.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2010. Accessed Feb 13, 2024.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking: 50 Years of Progress. A Report of the Surgeon General . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2014. Accessed Feb 12, 2024.
• Mukerjee R, Hirschtick JL, LZ Arciniega, et al. ENDS, cigarettes, and respiratory illness: longitudinal associations among U.S. youth . AJPM. Published online Dec 2023.
• Faulcon LM, Rudy S, Limpert J, Wang B, Murphy I. Adverse experience reports of seizures in youth and young adult electronic nicotine delivery systems users . J Adolesc Health . 2020;66(1):15–17.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration. E-cigarette: Safety Communication - Related to Seizures Reported Following E-cigarette Use, Particularly in Youth and Young Adults . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2019. Accessed Feb 14, 2024.
• Marynak KL, Gammon DG, Rogers T, et al. Sales of nicotine-containing electronic cigarette products: United States, 2015 . Am J Public Health . 2017;107(5):702-705.
• Regan AK, Bombard JM, O'Hegarty MM, Smith RA, Tong VT. Adverse birth outcomes associated with prepregnancy and prenatal electronic cigarette use . Obstet Gynecol. 2021;138(1):85–94.
• Regan AK, Pereira G. Patterns of combustible and electronic cigarette use during pregnancy and associated pregnancy outcomes . Sci Rep. 2021;11(1):13508.
• Kutlu MG, Parikh V, Gould TJ. Nicotine addiction and psychiatric disorders . Int Rev Neurobiol. 2015;124:171–208.
• Obisesan OH, Mirbolouk M, Osei AD, et al. Association between e-cigarette use and depression in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2016-2017 . JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(12):e1916800.
• Prochaska JJ, Das S, Young-Wolff KC. Smoking, mental illness, and public health . Annu Rev Public Health. 2017;38:165–185.
• Wootton RE, Richmond RC, Stuijfzand BG, et al. Evidence for causal effects of lifetime smoking on risk for depression and schizophrenia: a Mendelian randomisation study . Psychol Med. 2020;50(14):2435–2443.
• Taylor G, McNeill A, Girling A, Farley A, Lindson-Hawley N, Aveyard P. Change in mental health after smoking cessation: systematic review and meta-analysis . BMJ. 2014;348:g1151.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.   Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011–2021 . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2023. Accessed Dec 15, 2023.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Protecting Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory . Office of the Surgeon General; 2021. Accessed Jan 5, 2024.
• Lechner WV, Janssen T, Kahler CW, Audrain-McGovern J, Leventhal AM. Bi-directional associations of electronic and combustible cigarette use onset patterns with depressive symptoms in adolescents . Prev Med. 2017;96:73–78.
• Gentzke AS, Wang TW, Cornelius M, et al. Tobacco product use and associated factors among middle and high school students—National Youth Tobacco Survey, United States, 2021 . MMWR Surveill Summ. 2022;71(No. SS-5):1–29.

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Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control

The private and public seductions of the world’s biggest pop neuroscientist..

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For the past three years, one of the biggest podcasters on the planet has told a story to millions of listeners across half a dozen shows: There was a little boy, and the boy’s family was happy, until one day, the boy’s family fell apart. The boy was sent away. He foundered, he found therapy, he found science, he found exercise. And he became strong.

Today, Andrew Huberman is a stiff, jacked 48-year-old associate professor of neurology and ophthalmology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is given to delivering three-hour lectures on subjects such as “the health of our dopaminergic neurons.” His podcast is revelatory largely because it does not condescend, which has not been the way of public-health information in our time. He does not give the impression of someone diluting science to universally applicable sound bites for the slobbering masses. “Dopamine is vomited out into the synapse or it’s released volumetrically, but then it has to bind someplace and trigger those G-protein-coupled receptors, and caffeine increases the number, the density of those G-protein-coupled receptors,” is how he explains the effect of coffee before exercise in a two-hour-and-16-minute deep dive that has, as of this writing, nearly 8.9 million views on YouTube.

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Falling for dr. huberman.

Millions of people feel compelled to hear him draw distinctions between neuromodulators and classical neurotransmitters. Many of those people will then adopt an associated “protocol.” They will follow his elaborate morning routine. They will model the most basic functions of human life — sleeping, eating, seeing — on his sober advice. They will tell their friends to do the same. “He’s not like other bro podcasters,” they will say, and they will be correct; he is a tenured Stanford professor associated with a Stanford lab; he knows the difference between a neuromodulator and a neurotransmitter. He is just back from a sold-out tour in Australia, where he filled the Sydney Opera House. Stanford, at one point, hung signs (AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY) apparently to deter fans in search of the lab.

With this power comes the power to lift other scientists out of their narrow silos and turn them, too, into celebrities, but these scientists will not be Huberman, whose personal appeal is distinct. Here we have a broad-minded professor puppyishly enamored with the wonders of biological function, generous to interviewees (“I love to be wrong”), engaged in endearing attempts to sound like a normal person (“Now, we all have to eat, and it’s nice to eat foods that we enjoy. I certainly do that. I love food, in fact”).

This is a world in which the soft art of self-care is made concrete, in which Goop-adjacent platitudes find solidity in peer review. “People go, ‘Oh, that feels kind of like weenie stuff,’” Huberman tells Joe Rogan. “The data show that gratitude, and avoiding toxic people and focusing on good-quality social interactions … huge increases in serotonin.” “Hmmm,” Rogan says. There is a kindness to the way Huberman reminds his audience always of the possibilities of neuroplasticity: They can change. He has changed. As an adolescent, he says, he endured the difficult divorce of his parents, a Stanford professor who worked in the tech industry and a children’s-book author. The period after the separation was, he says, one of “pure neglect.” His father was gone, his mother “totally checked out.” He was forced, around age 14, to endure a month of “youth detention,” a situation that was “not a jail,” but harrowing in its own right.

“The thing that really saved me,” Huberman tells Peter Attia, “was this therapy thing … I was like, Oh, shit … I do have to choke back a little bit here. It’s a crazy thing to have somebody say, ‘Listen,’ like, to give you the confidence, like, ‘We’re gonna figure this out. We’re gonna figure this out. ’ There’s something very powerful about that. It wasn’t like, you know, ‘Everything will be okay.’ It was like, We’re gonna figure this out. ”

The wayward son would devote himself to therapy and also to science. He would turn Rancid all the way up and study all night long. He would be tenured at Stanford with his own lab, severing optic nerves in mice and noting what grew back.

Huberman has been in therapy, he says, since high school. He has, in fact, several therapists, and psychiatrist Paul Conti appears on his podcast frequently to discuss mental health. Therapy is “hard work … like going to the gym and doing an effective workout.” The brain is a machine that needs tending. Our cells will benefit from the careful management of stress. “I love mechanism, ” says Huberman; our feelings are integral to the apparatus. There are Huberman Husbands (men who optimize), a phenomenon not to be confused with #DaddyHuberman (used by women on TikTok in the man’s thrall).

A prophet must constrain his self-revelation. He must give his story a shape that ultimately tends toward inner strength, weakness overcome. For Andrew Huberman to become your teacher and mine, as he very much was for a period this fall — a period in which I diligently absorbed sun upon waking, drank no more than once a week, practiced physiological sighs in traffic, and said to myself, out loud in my living room, “I also love mechanism”; a period during which I began to think seriously, for the first time in my life, about reducing stress, and during which both my husband and my young child saw tangible benefit from repeatedly immersing themselves in frigid water; a period in which I realized that I not only liked this podcast but liked other women who liked this podcast — he must be, in some way, better than the rest of us.

Huberman sells a dream of control down to the cellular level. But something has gone wrong. In the midst of immense fame, a chasm has opened between the podcaster preaching dopaminergic restraint and a man, with newfound wealth, with access to a world unseen by most professors. The problem with a man always working on himself is that he may also be working on you.

Some of Andrew’s earliest Instagram posts are of his lab. We see smiling undergraduates “slicing, staining, and prepping brains” and a wall of framed science publications in which Huberman-authored papers appear: Nature, Cell Reports, The Journal of Neuroscience. In 2019, under the handle @hubermanlab, Andrew began posting straightforward educational videos in which he talks directly into the camera about subjects such as the organizational logic of the brain stem. Sometimes he would talk over a simple anatomical sketch on lined paper; the impression was, as it is now, of a fast-talking teacher in conversation with an intelligent student. The videos amassed a fan base, and Andrew was, in 2020, invited on some of the biggest podcasts in the world. On Lex Fridman Podcast, he talked about experiments his lab was conducting by inducing fear in people. On The Rich Roll Podcast, the relationship between breathing and motivation. On The Joe Rogan Experience, experiments his lab was conducting on mice.

He was a fluid, engaging conversationalist, rich with insight and informed advice. In a year of death and disease, when many felt a sense of agency slipping away, Huberman had a gentle plan. The subtext was always the same: We may live in chaos, but there are mechanisms of control.

By then he had a partner, Sarah, which is not her real name. Sarah was someone who could talk to anyone about anything. She was dewy and strong and in her mid-40s, though she looked a decade younger, with two small kids from a previous relationship. She had old friends who adored her and no trouble making new ones. She came across as scattered in the way she jumped readily from topic to topic in conversation, losing the thread before returning to it, but she was in fact extremely organized. She was a woman who kept track of things. She was an entrepreneur who could organize a meeting, a skill she would need later for reasons she could not possibly have predicted. When I asked her a question in her home recently, she said the answer would be on an old phone; she stood up, left for only a moment, and returned with a box labeled OLD PHONES.

Sarah’s relationship with Andrew began in February 2018 in the Bay Area, where they both lived. He messaged her on Instagram and said he owned a home in Piedmont, a wealthy city separate from Oakland. That turned out not to be precisely true; he lived off Piedmont Avenue, which was in Oakland. He was courtly and a bit formal, as he would later be on the podcast. In July, in her garden, Sarah says she asked to clarify the depth of their relationship. They decided, she says, to be exclusive.

Both had devoted their lives to healthy living: exercise, good food, good information. They cared immoderately about what went into their bodies. Andrew could command a room and clearly took pleasure in doing so. He was busy and handsome, healthy and extremely ambitious. He gave the impression of working on himself; throughout their relationship, he would talk about “repair” and “healthy merging.” He was devoted to his bullmastiff, Costello, whom he worried over constantly: Was Costello comfortable? Sleeping properly? Andrew liked to dote on the dog, she says, and he liked to be doted on by Sarah. “I was never sitting around him,” she says. She cooked for him and felt glad when he relished what she had made. Sarah was willing to have unprotected sex because she believed they were monogamous.

On Thanksgiving in 2018, Sarah planned to introduce Andrew to her parents and close friends. She was cooking. Andrew texted repeatedly to say he would be late, then later. According to a friend, “he was just, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be there. Oh, I’m going to be running hours late.’ And then of course, all of these things were planned around his arrival and he just kept going, ‘Oh, I’m going to be late.’ And then it’s the end of the night and he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry this and this happened.’”

Huberman disappearing was something of a pattern. Friends, girlfriends, and colleagues describe him as hard to reach. The list of reasons for not showing up included a book, time-stamping the podcast, Costello, wildfires, and a “meetings tunnel.” “He is flaky and doesn’t respond to things,” says his friend Brian MacKenzie, a health influencer who has collaborated with him on breathing protocols. “And if you can’t handle that, Andrew definitely is not somebody you want to be close to.” “He in some ways disappeared,” says David Spiegel, a Stanford psychiatrist who calls Andrew “prodigiously smart” and “intensely engaging.” “I mean, I recently got a really nice email from him. Which I was touched by. I really was.”

In 2018, before he was famous, Huberman invited a Colorado-based investigative journalist and anthropologist, Scott Carney, to his home in Oakland for a few days; the two would go camping and discuss their mutual interest in actionable science. It had been Huberman, a fan of Carney’s book What Doesn’t Kill Us, who initially reached out, and the two became friendly over phone and email. Huberman confirmed Carney’s list of camping gear: sleeping bag, bug spray, boots.

When Carney got there, the two did not go camping. Huberman simply disappeared for most of a day and a half while Carney stayed home with Costello. He puttered around Huberman’s place, buying a juice, walking through the neighborhood, waiting for him to return. “It was extremely weird,” says Carney. Huberman texted from elsewhere saying he was busy working on a grant. (A spokesperson for Huberman says he clearly communicated to Carney that he went to work.) Eventually, instead of camping, the two went on a few short hikes.

Even when physically present, Huberman can be hard to track. “I don’t have total fidelity to who Andrew is,” says his friend Patrick Dossett. “There’s always a little unknown there.” He describes Andrew as an “amazing thought partner” with “almost total recall,” such a memory that one feels the need to watch what one says; a stray comment could surface three years later. And yet, at other times, “you’re like, All right, I’m saying words and he’s nodding or he is responding, but I can tell something I said sent him down a path that he’s continuing to have internal dialogue about, and I need to wait for him to come back. ”

Andrew Huberman declined to be interviewed for this story. Through a spokesman, Huberman says he did not become exclusive with Sarah until late 2021, that he was not doted on, that tasks between him and Sarah were shared “based on mutual agreement and proficiency,” that their Thanksgiving plans were tentative, and that he “maintains a very busy schedule and shows up to the vast majority of his commitments.”

In the fall of 2020, Huberman sold his home in Oakland and rented one in Topanga, a wooded canyon enclave contiguous with Los Angeles. When he came back to Stanford, he stayed with Sarah, and when he was in Topanga, Sarah was often with him.

When they fought, it was, she says, typically because Andrew would fixate on her past choices: the men she had been with before him, the two children she had had with another man. “I experienced his rage,” Sarah recalls, “as two to three days of yelling in a row. When he was in this state, he would go on until 11 or 12 at night and sometimes start again at two or three in the morning.”

The relationship struck Sarah’s friends as odd. At one point, Sarah said, “I just want to be with my kids and cook for my man.” “I was like, Who says that? ” says a close friend. “I mean, I’ve known her for 30 years. She’s a powerful, decisive, strong woman. We grew up in this very feminist community. That’s not a thing either of us would ever say.”

Another friend found him stressful to be around. “I try to be open-minded,” she said of the relationship. “I don’t want to be the most negative, nonsupportive friend just because of my personal observations and disgust over somebody.” When they were together, he was buzzing, anxious. “He’s like, ‘Oh, my dog needs his blanket this way.’ And I’m like, ‘Your dog is just laying there and super-cozy. Why are you being weird about the blanket?’”

Sarah was not the only person who experienced the extent of Andrew’s anger. In 2019, Carney sent Huberman materials from his then-forthcoming book, The Wedge, in which Huberman appears. He asked Huberman to confirm the parts in which he was mentioned. For months, Huberman did not respond. Carney sent a follow-up email; if Huberman did not respond, he would assume everything was accurate. In 2020, after months of saying he was too busy to review the materials, Huberman called him and, Carney says, came at him in a rage. “I’ve never had a source I thought was friendly go bananas,” says Carney. Screaming, Huberman threatened to sue and accused Carney of “violating Navy OpSec.”

It had become, by then, one of the most perplexing relationships of Carney’s life. That year, Carney agreed to Huberman’s invitation to swim with sharks on an island off Mexico. First, Carney would have to spend a month of his summer getting certified in Denver. He did, at considerable expense. Huberman then canceled the trip a day before they were set to leave. “I think Andrew likes building up people’s expectations,” says Carney, “and then he actually enjoys the opportunity to pull the rug out from under you.”

In January 2021, Huberman launched his own podcast. Its reputation would be directly tied to his role as teacher and scientist. “I’d like to emphasize that this podcast,” he would say every episode, with his particular combination of formality and discursiveness, “is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public.”

“I remember feeling quite lonely and making some efforts to repair that,” Huberman would say on an episode in 2024. “Loneliness,” his interviewee said, “is a need state.” In 2021, the country was in the later stages of a need state: bored, alone, powerless. Huberman offered not only hours of educative listening but a plan to structure your day. A plan for waking. For eating. For exercising. For sleep. At a time when life had shifted to screens, he brought people back to their corporeal selves. He advised a “physiological sigh” — two short breaths in and a long one out — to reduce stress. He pulled countless people from their laptops and put them in rhythm with the sun. “Thank you for all you do to better humanity,” read comments on YouTube. “You may have just saved my life man.” “If Andrew were science teacher for everyone in the world,” someone wrote, “no one would have missed even a single class.”

Asked by Time last year for his definition of fun, Huberman said, “I learn and I like to exercise.” Among his most famous episodes is one in which he declares moderate drinking decidedly unhealthy. As MacKenzie puts it, “I don’t think anybody or anything, including Prohibition, has ever made more people think about alcohol than Andrew Huberman.” While he claims repeatedly that he doesn’t want to “demonize alcohol,” he fails to mask his obvious disapproval of anyone who consumes alcohol in any quantity. He follows a time-restricted eating schedule. He discusses constraint even in joy, because a dopamine spike is invariably followed by a drop below baseline; he explains how even a small pleasure like a cup of coffee before every workout reduces the capacity to release dopamine. Huberman frequently refers to the importance of “social contact” and “peace, contentment, and delight,” always mentioned as a triad; these are ultimately leveraged for the one value consistently espoused: physiological health.

In August 2021, Sarah says she read Andrew’s journal and discovered a reference to cheating. She was, she says, “gutted.” “I hear you are saying you are angry and hurt,” he texted her the same day. “I will hear you as much as long as needed for us.”

Andrew and Sarah wanted children together. Optimizers sometimes prefer not to conceive naturally; one can exert more control when procreation involves a lab. Sarah began the first of several rounds of IVF. (A spokesperson for Huberman denies that he and Sarah had decided to have children together, clarifying that they “decided to create embryos by IVF.”)

In 2021, she tested positive for a high-risk form of HPV, one of the variants linked to cervical cancer. “I had never tested positive,” she says, “and had been tested regularly for ten years.” (A spokesperson for Huberman says he has never tested positive for HPV. According to the CDC, there is currently no approved test for HPV in men.) When she brought it up, she says, he told her you could contract HPV from many things.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about truth-telling and deception,” Andrew told evolutionary psychologist David Buss on a November 2021 episode of Huberman Lab called “How Humans Select & Keep Romantic Partners in Short & Long Term.” They were talking about regularities across cultures in mate preferences.

“Could you tell us,” Andrew asked, “about how men and women leverage deception versus truth-telling and communicating some of the things around mate choice selection?”

“Effective tactics for men,” said a gravel-voiced, 68-year-old Buss, “are often displaying cues to long-term interest … men tend to exaggerate the depths of their feelings for a woman.”

“Let’s talk about infidelity in committed relationships,” Andrew said, laughing. “I’m guessing it does happen.”

“Men who have affairs tend to have affairs with a larger number of affair partners,” said Buss. “And so which then by definition can’t be long-lasting. You can’t,” added Buss wryly, “have the long-term affairs with six different partners.”

“Yeah,” said Andrew, “unless he’s, um,” and here Andrew looked into the distance. “Juggling multiple, uh, phone accounts or something of that sort.”

“Right, right, right, and some men try to do that, but I think it could be very taxing,” said Buss.

By 2022, Andrew was legitimately famous. Typical headlines read “I tried a Stanford professor’s top productivity routine” and “Google CEO Uses ‘Nonsleep Deep Rest’ to Relax.” Reese Witherspoon told the world that she was sure to get ten minutes of sunlight in the morning and tagged Andrew. When he was not on his own podcast, Andrew was on someone else’s. He kept the place in Topanga, but he and Sarah began splitting rent in Berkeley. In June 2022, they fully combined lives; Sarah relocated her family to Malibu to be with him.

According to Sarah, Andrew’s rage intensified with cohabitation. He fixated on her decision to have children with another man. She says he told her that being with her was like “bobbing for apples in feces.” “The pattern of your 11 years, while rooted in subconscious drives,” he told her in December 2021, “creates a nearly impossible set of hurdles for us … You have to change.”

Sarah was, in fact, changing. She felt herself getting smaller, constantly appeasing. She apologized, again and again and again. “I have been selfish, childish, and confused,” she said. “As a result, I need your protection.” A spokesperson for Huberman denies Sarah’s accounts of their fights, denies that his rage intensified with cohabitation, denies that he fixated on Sarah’s decision to have children with another man, and denies that he said being with her was like bobbing for apples in feces. A spokesperson said, “Dr. Huberman is very much in control of his emotions.”

The first three rounds of IVF did not produce healthy embryos. In the spring of 2022, enraged again about her past, Andrew asked Sarah to explain in detail what he called her bad choices, most especially having her second child. She wrote it out and read it aloud to him. A spokesperson for Huberman denies this incident and says he does not regard her having a second child as a bad choice.

I think it’s important to recognize that we might have a model of who someone is,” says Dossett, “or a model of how someone should conduct themselves. And if they do something that is out of sync with that model, it’s like, well, that might not necessarily be on that person. Maybe it’s on us. Our model was just off.”

Huberman’s specialty lies in a narrow field: visual-system wiring. How comfortable one feels with the science propagated on Huberman Lab depends entirely on how much leeway one is willing to give a man who expounds for multiple hours a week on subjects well outside his area of expertise. His detractors note that Huberman extrapolates wildly from limited animal studies, posits certainty where there is ambiguity, and stumbles when he veers too far from his narrow realm of study, but even they will tend to admit that the podcast is an expansive, free (or, as he puts it, “zero-cost”) compendium of human knowledge. There are quack guests, but these are greatly outnumbered by profound, complex, patient, and often moving descriptions of biological process.

Huberman Lab is premised on the image of a working scientist. One imagines clean white counters, rodents in cages, postdocs peering into microscopes. “As scientists,” Huberman says frequently. He speaks often, too, of the importance of mentorship. He “loves” reading teacher evaluations. On the web, one can visit the lab and even donate. I have never met a Huberman listener who doubted the existence of such a place, and this appears to be by design. In a glowing 2023 profile in Stanford magazine, we learn “Everything he does is inspired by this love,” but do not learn that Huberman lives 350 miles and a six-hour drive from Stanford University, making it difficult to drop into the lab. Compounding the issue is the fact that the lab, according to knowledgeable sources, barely exists.

“Is a postdoc working on her own funding, alone, a ‘lab?’” asks a researcher at Stanford. There had been a lab — four rooms on the second floor of the Sherman Fairchild Science Building. Some of them smelled of mice. It was here that researchers anesthetized rodents, injected them with fluorescence, damaged their optic nerves, and watched for the newly bright nerves to grow back.

The lab, says the researcher, was already scaling down before COVID. It was emptying out, postdocs apparently unsupervised, a quarter-million-dollar laser-scanning microscope gathering dust. Once the researcher saw someone come in and reclaim a $3,500 rocker, a machine for mixing solutions.

Shortly before publication, a spokesperson for Stanford said, “Dr. Huberman’s lab at Stanford is operational and is in the process of moving from the Department of Neurobiology to the Department of Ophthalmology,” and a spokesperson for Huberman says the equipment in Dr. Huberman’s lab remained in use until the last postdoc moved to a faculty position.

On every episode of his “zero-cost” podcast, Huberman gives a lengthy endorsement of a powder formerly known as Athletic Greens and now as AG1. It is one thing to hear Athletic Greens promoted by Joe Rogan; it is perhaps another to hear someone who sells himself as a Stanford University scientist just back from the lab proclaim that this $79-a-month powder “covers all of your foundational nutritional needs.” In an industry not noted for its integrity, AG1 is, according to writer and professional debunker Derek Beres, “one of the most egregious players in the space.” Here we have a powder that contains, according to its own marketing, 75 active ingredients, far more than the typical supplement, which would seem a selling point but for the inconveniences of mass. As performance nutritionist Adam McDonald points out, the vast number of ingredients indicates that each ingredient, which may or may not promote good health in a certain dose, is likely included in minuscule amounts, though consumers are left to do the math themselves; the company keeps many of the numbers proprietary. “We can be almost guaranteed that literally every supplement or ingredient within this proprietary blend is underdosed,” explains McDonald; the numbers, he says, don’t appear to add up to anything research has shown to be meaningful in terms of human health outcomes. And indeed, “the problem with most of the probiotics is they’re typically not concentrated enough to actually colonize,” one learns from Dr. Layne Norton in a November 2022 episode of Huberman Lab. (AG1 argues that probiotics are effective and that the 75 ingredients are “included not only for their individual benefit, but for the synergy between them — how ingredients interact in complex ways, and how combinations can lead to additive effects.”) “That’s the good news about podcasts,” Huberman said when Wendy Zukerman of Science Vs pointed out that her podcast would never make recommendations based on such tenuous research. “People can choose which podcast they want to listen to.”

Whenever Sarah had suspicions about Andrew’s interactions with another woman, he had a particular way of talking about the woman in question. She says he said the women were stalkers, alcoholics, and compulsive liars. He told her that one woman tore out her hair with chunks of flesh attached to it. He told her a story about a woman who fabricated a story about a dead baby to “entrap” him. (A spokesperson for Huberman denies the account of the denigration of women and the dead-baby story and says the hair story was taken out of context.) Most of the time, Sarah believed him; the women probably were crazy. He was a celebrity. He had to be careful.

It was in August 2022 that Sarah noticed she and Andrew could not go out without being thronged by people. On a camping trip in Washington State that same month, Sarah brought syringes and a cooler with ice packs. Every day of the trip, he injected the drugs meant to stimulate fertility into her stomach. This was round four.

Later that month, Sarah says she grabbed Andrew’s phone when he had left it in the bathroom, checked his texts, and found conversations with someone we will call Eve. Some of them took place during the camping trip they had just taken.

“Your feelings matter,” he told Eve on a day when he had injected his girlfriend with hCG. “I’m actually very much a caretaker.” And later: “I’m back on grid tomorrow and would love to see you this weekend.”

Caught having an affair, Andrew was apologetic. “The landscape has been incredibly hard,” he said. “I let the stress get to me … I defaulted to self safety … I’ve also sat with the hardest of feelings.” “I hear your insights,” he said, “and honestly I appreciate them.”

Sarah noticed how courteous he was with Eve. “So many offers,” she pointed out, “to process and work through things.”

Eve is an ethereally beautiful actress, the kind of woman from whom it is hard to look away. Where Sarah exudes a winsome chaotic energy, Eve is intimidatingly collected. Eve saw Andrew on Raya in 2020 and messaged him on Instagram. They went for a swim in Venice, and he complimented her form. “You’re definitely,” he said, “on the faster side of the distribution.” She found him to be an extraordinary listener, and she liked the way he appeared to be interested in her internal life. He was busy all the time: with his book, and eventually the podcast; his dog; responsibilities at Stanford. “I’m willing to do the repair work on this,” he said when she called him out for standing her up, or, “This sucks, but doesn’t deter my desire and commitment to see you, and establish clear lines of communication and trust.” Despite his endless excuses for not showing up, he seemed, to Eve, to be serious about deepening their relationship, which lasted on and off for two years. Eve had the impression that he was not seeing anyone else: She was willing to have unprotected sex.

As their relationship intensified over the years, he talked often about the family he one day wanted. “Our children would be amazing,” he said. She asked for book recommendations and he suggested, jokingly, Huberman: Why We Made Babies. “I’m at the stage of life where I truly want to build a family,” he told her. “That’s a resounding theme for me.” “How to mesh lives,” he said in a voice memo. “A fundamental question.” One time she heard him say, on Joe Rogan, that he had a girlfriend. She texted him to ask about it, and he responded immediately. He had a stalker, he said, and so his team had decided to invent a partner for the listening public. (“I later learned,” Eve tells me with characteristic equanimity, “that this was not true.”)

In September 2022, Eve noticed that Sarah was looking at her Instagram stories; not commenting or liking, just looking. Impulsively, Eve messaged her. “Is there anything you’d rather ask me directly?” she said. They set up a call. “Fuck you Andrew,” she messaged him.

Sarah moved out in August 2023 but says she remained in a committed relationship with Huberman. (A spokesperson for Huberman says they were separated.) At Thanksgiving that year, she noticed he was “wiggly” every time a cell phone came out at the table — trying to avoid, she suspected, being photographed. She says she did not leave him until December. According to Sarah, the relationship ended, as it had started, with a lie. He had been at her place for a couple of days and left for his place to prepare for a Zoom call; they planned to go Christmas shopping the next day. Sarah showed up at his house and found him on the couch with another woman. She could see them through the window. “If you’re going to be a cheater,” she advises me later, “do not live in a glass house.”

On January 11, a woman we’ll call Alex began liking all of Sarah’s Instagram posts, seven of them in a minute. Sarah messaged her: “I think you’re friends with my ex, Andrew Huberman. Are you one of the woman he cheated on me with?” Alex is an intense, direct, highly educated woman who lives in New York; she was sleeping with Andrew; and she had no idea there had been a girlfriend. “Fuck,” she said. “I think we should talk.” Over the following weeks, Sarah and Alex never stopped texting. “She helped me hold my boundary against him,” says Sarah, “keep him blocked. She said, ‘You need to let go of the idea of him.’” Instead of texting Andrew, Sarah texted Alex. Sometimes they just talked about their days and not about Andrew at all. Sarah still thought beautiful Eve, on the other hand, “might be crazy,” but they talked some more and brought her into the group chat. Soon there were others. There was Mary: a dreamy, charismatic Texan he had been seeing for years. Her friends called Andrew “bread crumbs,” given his tendency to disappear. There was a fifth woman in L.A., funny and fast-talking. Alex had been apprehensive; she felt foolish for believing Andrew’s lies and worried that the other women would seem foolish, therefore compounding her shame. Foolish women were not, however, what she found. Each of the five was assertive and successful and educated and sharp-witted; there had been a type, and they were diverse expressions of that type. “I can’t believe how crazy I thought you were,” Mary told Sarah. No one struck anyone else as a stalker. No one had made up a story about a dead baby or torn out hair with chunks in it. “I haven’t slept with anyone but him for six years,” Sarah told the group. “If it makes you feel any better,” Alex joked, “according to the CDC,” they had all slept with one another.

The women compared time-stamped screenshots of texts and assembled therein an extraordinary record of deception.

There was a day in Texas when, after Sarah left his hotel, Andrew slept with Mary and texted Eve. They found days in which he would text nearly identical pictures of himself to two of them at the same time. They realized that the day before he had moved in with Sarah in Berkeley, he had slept with Mary, and he had also been with her in December 2023, the weekend before Sarah caught him on the couch with a sixth woman.

They realized that on March 21, 2021, a day of admittedly impressive logistical jujitsu, while Sarah was in Berkeley, Andrew had flown Mary from Texas to L.A. to stay with him in Topanga. While Mary was there, visiting from thousands of miles away, he left her with Costello. He drove to a coffee shop, where he met Eve. They had a serious talk about their relationship. They thought they were in a good place. He wanted to make it work.

“Phone died,” he texted Mary, who was waiting back at the place in Topanga. And later, to Eve: “Thank you … For being so next, next, level gorgeous and sexy.”

“Sleep well beautiful,” he texted Sarah.

“The scheduling alone!” Alex tells me. “I can barely schedule three Zooms in a day.”

In the aggregate, Andrew’s therapeutic language took on a sinister edge. It was communicating a commitment that was not real, a profound interest in the internality of women that was then used to manipulate them.

“Does Huberman have vices?” asks an anonymous Reddit poster.

“I remember him saying,” reads the first comment, “that he loves croissants.”

While Huberman has been criticized for having too few women guests on his podcast, he is solicitous and deferential toward those he interviews. In a January 2023 episode, Dr. Sara Gottfried argues that “patriarchal messaging” and white supremacy contribute to the deterioration of women’s health, and Andrew responds with a story about how his beloved trans mentor, Ben Barres, had experienced “intense suppression/oppression” at MIT before transitioning. “Psychology is influencing biology,” he says with concern. “And you’re saying these power dynamics … are impacting it.”

In private, he could sometimes seem less concerned about patriarchy. Multiple women recall him saying he preferred the kind of relationship in which the woman was monogamous but the man was not. “He told me,” says Mary, “that what he wanted was a woman who was submissive, who he could slap in the ass in public, and who would be crawling on the floor for him when he got home.” (A spokesperson for Huberman denies this.) The women continued to compare notes. He had his little ways of checking in: “Good morning beautiful.” There was a particular way he would respond to a sexy picture: “Mmmmm hi there.”

A spokesperson for Huberman insisted that he had not been monogamous with Sarah until late 2021, but a recorded conversation he had with Alex suggested that in May of that year he had led Sarah to believe otherwise. “Well, she was under the impression that we were exclusive at that time,” he said. “Women are not dumb like that, dude,” Alex responded. “She was under that impression? Then you were giving her that impression.” Andrew agreed: “That’s what I meant. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put it on her.”

The kind of women to whom Andrew Huberman was attracted; the kind of women who were attracted to him — these were women who paid attention to what went into their bodies, women who made avoiding toxicity a central focus of their lives. They researched non-hormone-disrupting products, avoided sugar, ate organic. They were disgusted by the knowledge that they had had sex with someone who had an untold number of partners. All of them wondered how many others there were. When Sarah found Andrew with the other woman, there had been a black pickup truck in the driveway, and she had taken a picture. The women traced the plates, but they hit a dead end and never found her.

Tell us about the dark triad,” he had said to Buss in November on the trip in which he slept with Mary.

“The dark triad consists of three personality characteristics,” said Buss. “So narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.” Such people “feign cooperation but then cheat on subsequent moves. They view other people as pawns to be manipulated for their own instrumental gains.” Those “who are high on dark-triad traits,” he said, “tend to be good at the art of seduction.” The vast majority of them were men.

Andrew told one of the women that he wasn’t a sex addict; he was a love addict. Addiction, Huberman says, “is a progressing narrowing of things that bring you joy.” In August 2021, the same month Sarah first learned of Andrew’s cheating, he released an episode with Anna Lembke, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. Lembke, the author of a book called Dopamine Nation, gave a clear explanation of the dopaminergic roots of addiction.

“What happens right after I do something that is really pleasurable,” she says, “and releases a lot of dopamine is, again, my brain is going to immediately compensate by downregulating my own dopamine receptors … And that’s that comedown, or the hangover or that aftereffect, that moment of wanting to do it more.” Someone who waits for the feeling to pass, she explained, will reregulate, go back to  baseline. “If I keep indulging again and again and again,” she said, “ultimately I have so much on the pain side that I’ve essentially reset my brain to what we call anhedonic or lacking-in-joy type of state, which is a dopamine deficit state.” This is a state in which nothing is enjoyable: “Everything sort of pales in comparison to this one drug that I want to keep doing.”

“Just for the record,” Andrew said, smiling, “Dr. Lembke has … diagnosed me outside the clinic, in a playful way, of being work addicted. You’re probably right!”

Lembke laughed. “You just happen to be addicted,” she said gently, “to something that is really socially rewarded.”

What he failed to understand, he said, was people who ruined their lives with their disease. “I like to think I have the compassion,” he said, “but I don’t have that empathy for taking a really good situation and what from the outside looks to be throwing it in the trash.”

At least three ex-girlfriends remain friendly with Huberman. He “goes deep very quickly,” says Keegan Amit, who dated Andrew from 2010 to 2017 and continues to admire him. “He has incredible emotional capacity.” A high-school girlfriend says both she and he were “troubled” during their time together, that he was complicated and jealous but “a good person” whom she parted with on good terms. “He really wants to get involved emotionally but then can’t quite follow through,” says someone he dated on and off between 2006 and 2010. “But yeah. I don’t think it’s …” She hesitates. “I think he has such a good heart.”

Andrew grew up in Palo Alto just before the dawn of the internet, a lost city. He gives some version of his origin story on The Rich Roll Podcast ; he repeats it for Tim Ferriss and Peter Attia. He tells Time magazine and Stanford magazine. “Take the list of all the things a parent shouldn’t do in a divorce,” he recently told Christian bowhunter Cameron Hanes. “They did them all.” “You had,” says Wendy Zukerman in her bright Aussie accent, “a wayward childhood.” “I think it’s very easy for people listening to folks with a bio like yours,” says Tim Ferriss, “to sort of assume a certain trajectory, right? To assume that it has always come easy.” His father and mother agree that “after our divorce was an incredibly hard time for Andrew,” though they “do not agree” with some of his characterization of his past; few parents want to be accused of “pure neglect.”

Huberman would not provide the name of the detention center in which he says he was held for a month in high school. In a version of the story Huberman tells on Peter Attia’s podcast, he says, “We lost a couple of kids, a couple of kids killed themselves while we were there.” ( New York was unable to find an account of this event.)

Andrew attended Gunn, a high-performing, high-pressure high school. Classmates describe him as always with a skateboard; they remember him as pleasant, “sweet,” and not particularly academic. He would, says one former classmate, “drop in on the half-pipe,” where he was “encouraging” to other skaters. “I mean, he was a cool, individual kid,” says another classmate. “There was one year he, like, bleached his hair and everyone was like, ‘Oh, that guy’s cool.’” It was a wealthy place, the kind of setting where the word au pair comes up frequently, and Andrew did not stand out to his classmates as out of control or unpredictable. They do not recall him getting into street fights, as Andrew claims he did. He was, says Andrew’s father, “a little bit troubled, yes, but it was not something super-serious.”

What does seem certain is that in his adolescence, Andrew became a regular consumer of talk therapy. In therapy, one learns to tell stories about one’s experience. A story one could tell is: I overcame immense odds to be where I am. Another is: The son of a Stanford professor, born at Stanford Hospital, grows up to be a Stanford professor.

I have never,” says Amit, “met a man more interested in personal growth.” Andrew’s relationship to therapy remains intriguing. “We were at dinner once,” says Eve, “and he told me something personal, and I suggested he talk to his therapist. He laughed it off like that wasn’t ever going to happen, so I asked him if he lied to his therapist. He told me he did all the time.” (A spokesperson for Huberman denies this.)

“People high on psychopathy are good at deception,” says Buss. “I don’t know if they’re good at self-deception.” With repeated listening to the podcast, one discerns a man undergoing, in public, an effort to understand himself. There are hours of talking about addiction, trauma, dopamine, and fear. Narcissism comes up consistently. One can see attempts to understand and also places where those attempts swerve into self-indulgence. On a recent episode with the Stanford-trained psychiatrist Paul Conti, Andrew and Conti were describing the psychological phenomenon of “aggressive drive.” Andrew had an example to share: He once canceled an appointment with a Stanford colleague. There was no response. Eventually, he received a reply that said, in Andrew’s telling, “Well, it’s clear that you don’t want to pursue this collaboration.”

Andrew was, he said to Conti, “shocked.”

“I remember feeling like that was pretty aggressive,” Andrew told Conti. “It stands out to me as a pretty salient example of aggression.”

“So to me,” said Huberman, “that seems like an example of somebody who has a, well, strong aggressive drive … and when disappointed, you know, lashes back or is passive.”

“There’s some way in which the person doesn’t feel good enough no matter what this person has achieved. So then there is a sense of the need and the right to overcontrol.”

“Sure,” said Huberman.

“And now we’re going to work together, right, so I’m exerting significant control over you, right? And it may be that he’s not aware of it.”

“In this case,” said Andrew, “it was a she.”

This woman, explained Conti, based entirely on Andrew’s description of two emails, had allowed her unhealthy “excess aggression” to be “eclipsing the generative drive.” She required that Andrew “bowed down before” her “in the service of the ego” because she did not feel good about herself.

This conversation extends for an extraordinary nine minutes, both men egging each other on, diagnosis after diagnosis, salient, perhaps, for reasons other than those the two identify. We learn that this person lacks gratitude, generative drive, and happiness; she suffers from envy, low “pleasure drive,” and general unhappiness. It would appear, at a distance, to be an elaborate fantasy of an insane woman built on a single behavior: At some point in time, a woman decided she did not want to work with a man who didn’t show up.

There is an argument to be made that it does not matter how a helpful podcaster conducts himself outside of the studio. A man unable to constrain his urges may still preach dopaminergic control to others. Morning sun remains salutary. The physiological sigh, employed by this writer many times in the writing of this essay, continues to effect calm. The large and growing distance between Andrew Huberman and the man he continues to be may not even matter to those who buy questionable products he has recommended and from which he will materially benefit, or listeners who imagined a man in a white coat at work in Palo Alto. The people who definitively find the space between fantasy and reality to be a problem are women who fell for a podcaster who professed deep, sustained concern for their personal growth, and who, in his skyrocketing influence, continued to project an image of earnest self-discovery. It is here, in the false belief of two minds in synchronicity and exploration, that deception leads to harm. They fear it will lead to more.

“There’s so much pain,” says Sarah, her voice breaking. “Feeling we had made mistakes. We hadn’t been enough. We hadn’t been communicating. By making these other women into the other, I hadn’t really given space for their hurt. And let it sink in with me that it was so similar to my own hurt.”

Three of the women on the group text met up in New York in February, and the group has only grown closer. On any given day, one of the five can go into an appointment and come back to 100 texts. Someone shared a Reddit thread in which a commenter claimed Huberman had a “stable full a hoes,” and another responded, “I hope he thinks of us more like Care Bears,” at which point they assigned themselves Care Bear names. “Him: You’re the only girl I let come to my apartment,” read a meme someone shared; under it was a yellow lab looking extremely skeptical. They regularly use Andrew’s usual response to explicit photos (“Mmmmm”) to comment on pictures of one another’s pets. They are holding space for other women who might join.

“This group has radicalized me,” Sarah tells me. “There has been so much processing.” They are planning a weekend together this summer.

“It could have been sad or bitter,” says Eve. “We didn’t jump in as besties, but real friendships have been built. It has been, in a strange and unlikely way, quite a beautiful experience.”

Additional reporting by Amelia Schonbek and Laura Thompson.

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