With social distancing and no school, students are unable to see their friends and classmates. Biologically, teens need to socialize, and not seeing their friends makes this difficult. However, the internet has been a helpful tool that has helped students stay in touch with their friends as well as get their classwork done. The internet has also had some negatives, however, like social media, which can make it difficult for people to stay focused. Some students have shared their opinions on the positives and negatives of the internet during this time.

Positives:
“One positive is that it has helped me stay in touch with my friends even though I can’t see them.” Olivia Runge (22)
“One huge positive would be the ability to easily reach things like YouTube for something to cure my boredom a bit.” Hailey Simpson (22)
“The internet is basically my life anyways. I’m a member of one of the top 500 teams in an international game, and all my friends are online most often, so I’m seeing them all a lot more, except for those that work on the front lines. One even is in charge of his countries’ response in Australia. Most live in timezones where we miss each other, and it’s great seeing them all.” Stacy Hughes (20)
“A positive would be that I’m still able to connect to all my friends and be able to continue doing school.” Sarah Weber (21)
“I am able to get school work done online.” Megan Eurich (21)
“A positive of the internet during quarantine is that it allows me to stay connected to my friends and family that I am unable to see in person. It has also allowed us to learn from home effectively and maintain contact with our teachers. Before the internet, none of this e-learning would have been possible.” Tanner Maas (22)

Negatives:
“A negative about the internet is that sometimes it consumes my whole day when I can’t think of anything else to do.” Olivia Runge (22)
“A negative would be seeing all the news around COVID-19. It makes me sad to see how many people have been negatively affected by this whole thing.” Hailey Simpson (22)
“Negatives are the usual, people getting angry saying things they never would in real life, etcetera. The worst for me is probably how all the news is centered around politics and the corona. Even the scientific journals and publications I follow to keep myself from boredom are all on those subjects, although they have statistics and citations and the others don’t.” Stacy Hughes (20)
“A negative would be it’s so easy just to be on my phone or watching tv instead of doing other things.” Sarah Weber (21)
“Negative: Now being home all day every day, there isn’t much to do which causes me and others to constantly be on our phone. Going on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Snapchat to kill the time. My screen time in the week when we had school wasn’t too much but it has definitely gone up since then. It’s hard to do all your homework and not go on social media.” Morgan White (21)
“I play games instead of getting my school work done.” Megan Eurich (21)
“One of the Negatives is that every time I get on the internet there are sad stories about the reality of the situation we are in. There are so many articles about the lives lost because of the virus.” Tanner Maas (22)