How the internet could affect the moral development of an individual?
Moral development occurs with or without the Internet, favorable or otherwise. It is like anything, a tool that can both help and harm. It does, however, tend to loosen the standards on what is right or wrong, because of the increased frequency and opportunity to do damage, to oneself (addiction to Internet, inappropriate sites) or others (i.e. To Catch a Predator). In other words, it seems to maximize our ability to rationalize that something not okay is okay. Still, we’ve been doing that without the Internet forever, so I don’t know how much of a factor it really would be. Somebody is going to learn or not learn right from wrong, and that depends on upbringing and who the person is. It’s like gun control, in a way. Is banning guns going to stop murders? No. Do more guns produce more murderers? There is no conclusive evidence either way. So many other factors are involved.
