The internet is a vast scape of links and web pages that has constantly developed and evolved since its launch in 1991 – but are we too reliant on it? Are our children being raised by the internet?

In 2016 roughly half of the world's population used the internet, and according to this website, 58,565 Google searches happen every second.

Many people couldn't get through a single day without the internet, especially since the introduction of smartphones and mobile data, and this seems to be the heart of the problem.

It's easy to forget that the accessibility of the internet opens up the extreme possibility of over saturation, especially with younger generations.

This dependence on the World Wide Web mostly affects children and teenagers who are growing up with it - I'm guilty of spending too much time on a computer or a phone.

For some people everything revolves around getting likes from other people online. As adults this lifestyle is bad enough, but it's worryingly starting to emerge in even younger generations.

I see this in my younger cousins. A couple of them spend so much time on their phones, at a rate which is vastly different to when even I was their age. This alone goes to show just how much our reliance on the internet has progressed over the past few years.

A paranoid mind may see this increase in technological addiction to be a precursor to more and more people becoming even further engrossed in the digital world in years to come. This is a terrifying thought, we will have to see how the tech proliferates with time.

Perhaps we are at the digital apex, or maybe we've barely scratched the surface, either way the fixation of the internet on young people is at a worrying juncture as only time will tell if it will eventually diminish or will become even more prevalent.

•What do you think, are we relying on the internet too much? Leave your comments below.