The Internet has had an overall positive effect on our society.

"So far my opponent has only present three real positives of the internet: It is a place to buy rare items (that are most likely useless things like lava lamps), it provides in depth guides to common sense or knowledge and businesses have a new platform to play on."- Not to mention communications, but don't forget that these points are valid and very useful. Also, I would first like to congratulate you for finally coming up with your own new points. I. Crime: I have several points to make here. The first would be, of course, this use is a negative of many things, for example, since the beginning of TV, telephones and mail, scams can be carried out with ease. The Internet is simply another new way to do commit crimes. The good outweighs the bad, as it does with the other inventions. My second point is a little outlandish, but I believe, valid. The crime you are mostly referring to is of course, piracy. I once had a debate on the same issue. It is my belief that business are, inadvertently, encouraging the piracy of their products. The typical product that is pirated is usually quite expensive. Had these businesses priced these goods at a reasonably, there would be no need to pirate and they would have ended up with more money. (A typical movie DVD is usually between AUD$20-30. If only one person bought it, and then the rest copied it from this one DVD, the producers earn $30. If it costed just $5, the cost of using enough Internet to download the movie would probably exceed $5, or at least be not worth it. So 1000 people might buy it instead, one for each. The producers earn $5000 from this cross-section.) Furthermore, movies and TV shows are often released in countries such as Australia months later than their original release dates in the USA. Why would I want to wait 7 months for my favourite TV show's new season when I can find it online the same day it is released in the US? However, if the producers made it reasonable, I would watch TV and therefore they get their ratings. Piracy rates are very high, you might think the businesses would start getting the picture: people don't want to pay $30 for one movie. They don't want to pay $70 for programs that do only little jobs. Or more expensive programs. Even if people are turning to piracy, by the way, it does not make them more likely to commit other crimes. It is estimated that more than 1/3 people in Australia pirate, but that has not made our overall crime rate lower. And lastly, I would add that some businesses are actually sponsoring "legal piracy" now, where users can pay a fairly small fee to download files in the same way you would illegally. This is more reasonable. Some countries are making their laws looser. If you don't distribute your illegal downloads, and use it only for personal use, you won't be prosecuted. II. As for more serious and, I would say, real crimes, illegal pornography, terrorism, and cannibalism, here again the Internet is just another medium for crime to be committed. There were already these crimes being possible to commit before the Internet, and I would remind you, the good again outweighs the bad. These sad cases make up only a fraction of all Internet users and hosts. And governments can and do track them down. (I would also point out that I don't agree there was a lot of criminal intent in that case of the cannibal - the guy asked for it, I think if that's what he really wanted, that's his choice, but that's another matter entirely.) The Internet is not the cause of these problems, these crimes are just a sad fact of life that we must deal with. III. Yeah, OK. Why don't you give me the percentage of that 90% that was actually mentally damaged by seeing pornography? As for teenagers, the interest in sex is biological - if they choose to look at pornography I also think that should be their choice. Does it make any sense that the law (at least here) allows them to have sex at age 16, but they are (supposedly) not allowed to see pornography until age 18? That is illogical. Also, about your source, the tips on how to prevent them from seeing porn, mention that the parents need to talk to the child. This is true. Psychologists say that it is important for children to learn about sex from their parents. So if the parent doesn't, it certainly isn't the Internet's fault. By the way, most of the "damage" that comes from seeing pornography is "moral" and other unfounded reasons. Kids learn about sex early these days, people have lamented this, but it hasn't done any real harm. There certainly is little proof to say so. I know that even as young as 12, I had classmates who could make jokes with sexual overtones, there is no damaging effect. I don't have any classmates who have STDs, or who have yet even had sex. "This place where you say is the perfect breeding ground for finding loves is also the place where a lot of the internet using youth are also coming across material that can be damaging to their future development..." - Be more specific. The place on the Internet that facilitates the finding of love is dating sites, not porn sites. I would remind you that dating sites are in fact advertised on TV, regularly, and quite early on in the night as well. "However many of the positives simply facilitate activities that would continue without the internet and would happen at the same rate." - I disagree - the Internet's positives have allowed the flowering of all people's personalities and interests, knowledge and even productivity, and etc., at rates that never could happen without it. I have friends in foreign countries, certainly friends that I never could've made without the Internet. I learnt a language using thanks to the Internet, faster and more efficiently than I would have without it, for free rather than for money (let's not get into a whole thing about that though), I aided my social skills on the Internet, I learnt all about politics and social issues from the Internet, and a lot of other interests from the Internet, adding a lot of general knowledge and new ideas to myself. The Internet may have it's down sides, like all inventions, and like all things, but generally, it has been a huge help in many ways, to almost everyone who uses it. (Note: I am at a complete loss as to what your first source proves. On your second source, I don't think this is the fault of the Internet, but of the child and their parents. It's simply about self-control. If they aren't taught this, and if they aren't doing anything, that isn't the Internet's fault. I don't do sports, and I eat right, and I'm thin. I am interested in my own academic progression. It is about self-control. And I would say that, although this definitely does not apply to all children, if they are expanding their knowledge using the Internet, at least they are getting smarter.)