After Covid-19: Health effects of being online

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced all of us to stay at home or maintain social distance for necessary activities for living. It has been more than forty days of complete lockdown throughout the country. People are to stay at their home. What activity can a person do if he has to stay at home 24×7? The only answer will be being online. From small children to adults, from students to teachers, from small workers to officials everybody is online. The virus has changed the way we look at smart-phones, internet, social media etc. everybody has embraced it. Movie theatres are closed. No social gathering and celebrations, no restaurants, no shopping. In the last month the internet data usage has increased drastically. Some applications has seen more than forty percentage rise in its usage. Social media usage has grown as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, as more users go online to stay connected with family, friends and colleagues. Now, new data from insights and consulting firm Kantar reveals exactly how much some apps are benefiting. According to a survey of more than 25,000 consumers in 30 markets conducted from March 14 to 24, WhatsApp is the social media app that has experienced the greatest gains due to COVID-19. (Sarah Perez. 2020) This is good as well as bad. Too much usage of internet and being online converts into an addiction. This internet addiction has adverse health effects. The effects cannot only be physical bus also psychological. We shall look at these effects in this paper. First of let me discuss what is internet addiction?