?Learning? from the Internet convinces young people that they don?t need to go out into the real world to investigate. That?s how they get cheated of the joys that come with such forays

MANY parents throughout the world fear the Internet, especially in terms of how it might impact on their children. Many of these fears center on the youngsters? access to pornography. Others dislike online games because of the violence, and because children (and adults) do get fixated.

Those fears are well-grounded, but I feel we might have a distorted sense of the risks posed by the Net. The fear of sex on the Internet, for example, has resulted in some ridiculous situations, as in the case of over-zealous self-appointed censors who tried to filter the content of an Internet service by banning anything with reference to ?breast.? The result? Even articles on breastfeeding couldn?t be accessed!

Let?s face it: The Internet is here to stay. Not only that, the younger a person is, the more adept he or she is at handling the Net. I anticipate my own children, still toddlers right now but already getting exposed to computers in preschool, will be teaching me many things about it soon.

The Internet, too, can be fascinating, opening new horizons and new worlds. The term ?hypertext? couldn?t have been more appropriate. You might be reading something about the Philippines, for example, that mentions our coral reef systems, the words appearing in color. By clicking on that word you?ll find yourself transported to another site with an article about those systems and offering more links to yet more sites. All too often I?ve found myself detouring too far away from my original topic of research... literally lost in the Net.

The Internet makes us feel good, many times allowing us escape. It?s like an addiction, which means we feel so good about the results of some activity (e.g. drinking alcohol) that we want to repeat it, hoping to get the same high from previous experiences.

The thrills are higher for the young, who are more open to new adventures. So they can stay online for hours on end. And their rationalization, which many parents will buy, is that the Internet is ?educational.? This ?educational? rationale is something I?d be most vigilant about ? and I speak here as an educator.

For years now, I?ve seen how the Internet has distorted many students? learning processes. Sure, the Internet allows access to so much more information, but we often forget that there?s also a lot of misinformation out there. I use the Internet for my own writing, and appreciate how it facilitates research, but I?ve come to realize that we need to be very critical about what?s posted.

I remember how I once quoted from an Internet government site that Metro Manila is bounded on the east by the Cordillera mountains. I traveled frequently to the Cordillera in my younger years and so I know it takes hours to get there, yet I absent-mindedly used that piece of misinformation in one of my columns, which is now posted on the Internet and could end up being quoted by others.

The trouble is that we, and young people especially, think of the Internet as omniscient, as infallible. We need to point out that there?s so much junk out there, including a lot of stuff generated by the most ignoble of intentions, from prejudice and bigotry to commercialism (be very careful about the claims for health products).

With a book or newspaper, you can pause and think, and be critical. You can be reading something on chapter 3 and then realize, this doesn?t make sense given what the author wrote in chapter 2. With the Internet, the text and the images move too quickly to allow this kind of reflection.

Then there?s the constant copy-pasting, which is another disturbing development that has become very common with students (and professors). Let me tell you a big secret: When I started college we didn?t have photocopiers yet, so students spent time in the library copying, by hand, passages from books. It was tedious, but it allowed us to learn faster because we exercised our brains in filtering out what was unnecessary. In the process, what got copied got ?xeroxed? into our minds.

When photocopiers came, the temptation was to photocopy an entire chapter... then an entire book. I have a professor who has a whole collection of photocopied books but still can?t teach so I keep reminding students and colleagues: ?It?s not enough to photocopy something... you have to read it.?

With the Internet, we see future generations in danger of cut-and-paste ?learning? ? even worse than photocopying books, because here the materials are submitted as one?s own, in other words, plagiarized. And this is fueled by an addiction, to just keep going... and going.

I gave this kind of ?learning? only as an example of how the Internet creates junkies in insidious ways. Addictions are dangerous in the way that they displace people away from the real pleasures of life. ?Learning? from the Internet convinces young people that they don?t need to go out into the real world to investigate, and end up being deprived of the joys that come with such forays.

Let me quickly turn to social networking as another example. Facebook and other similar sites are fine... but they can also be addicting. Young people have to realize that socializing in the virtual world cannot substitute for going out into the real world and meeting, face to face, with real people.