Does downloading effect the Internet speed (of others)?

So, for some years now my sibling has been claiming that my utorrent downloading is causing their connection (and their download) to be slow. They too use utorrent and say that when I stop my download, theirs increase in speed, therefore I shouldn't be 'wasting the speed'.

I know that to some extent how many people / what they do online does of course effect the speed but in the end isn't it pretty equal between all users? For example : I may be downloading something, but that is all I'm doing at the moment where as the other user is not downloading but browsing the net, viewing videos and using MSN.

and what does make a utorrent download faster or slower?

[My ISP speed is 2mb]
 
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