Merits and Demerits of the Internet Essay

The lucre is a soci everyy disruptive technology. It has changed the authority we do business, march on with each an early(a)(prenominal), and steady how we view the field in the little amount of time that the public has apply it. From its beginning as a project of the Department of Defense to connect its computers to protrudeher, the Internet is now a resource that most mass in the developed world cannot live without. I myself sop up been abnormal by the meshwork. I am one of the 1,114,274,426 people who use the meshing in its various forms. Whether by emailing my friends, or ordering a book on Amazon.com, I am a part of the internet generation, the generation of people who grew up with the benefits of the Internet.This paper tries to explore how the Internet has touched my life. I go away try to look at both the benefits of the Internet and its drawbacks. Looking at my internet use, I chance upon that there are primarily three ways that I use the internet for conveni ence, for information and at last for the cyber club. Convenience This has got to be the reason most everyday people use the internet, it simply makes occasions easier.From email to account book processing, with the internet, previous tasks that are cumbersome and time-consuming are now dischargeed effortlessly at the click of a mouse. You no longer have to write a letter by hand, affix a stamp, and thus mail it afterwards waiting for not minutes but entire days just to trust a letter to a friend or colleague. In the amount of time that it unsays to read this sentence, I could have forwarded a chain letter to dozens if not hundreds of people in my email treat book. Communication through with(predicate) the internet has radic bothy changed the way we live.By the sheer simplicity and ease of direct a letter through email, we probably communicate with each other more and with greater intimacy. It has helped me maintain in touch with my family pieces and friends at home. Ev en simple messages like trivial requests or a short how are you? reach their destination make up half a world a way nearly instantaneously when I press the send button on my email program of choice. Aside from communication, other way that the internet has made lives easier is through electronic commerce or simply e-commerce.From this very hot seat I am sitting on, I buy my bus tickets, send and receive money through e-banking and even watch movies. I dont have to move myself out of the house (or even out of this chair) to take care of my basic necessities, leaving me with more time to finish more mechanical press tasks. Truly, this is a way that the Internet has made my life much easier. On the other hand the internet has not only made my life easier, it has in like manner made the lives of shady characters easier too. It has helped spread junk emails, spyware programs, and even computer viruses through its communication lines.My worst experience with this was a virus I got from a netmail email. The virus completely ruined my laptop and made me reinstall the operating system. Even as I did this, the virus had already spread to other email addresses stored in my email address book. Another thing I noticed is that the convenience of the Internet has made me more impatient. For someone who got accustomed to email and e-commerce, I find that waiting even for very short amount of times has already become a difficult exercise for me. Being spoiled by the internet, I now want and expect all things to be done at cyber-speed.A much more serious effect of the Internets ease of communication is the creation of a new arena of crime internet crime. I myself have had no experience with Internet crimes but that is something I dont want to change in the near future. The convenience of the internet has equally empowered me to do my email and shopping and empowered crooks to perform felonies from credit card fraud to piracy and even identicalness theft. Information T he internet has changed both the way we get access to information and the amount of information we can have access to.Enormous amounts of meshwork pages are born everyday, with equally impressive search engines to quickly comb through these web pages to get the information you want. Personally, I use internet portals such as Yahoo and Naver as they have close to everything I need, news, entertainment, weather information, dictionaries, study materials etc. Another thing about information on the internet is that unlike traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio and TV, the internet is a duplex communication channel. The hang of information from traditional outlets only goes one-way, the TV reports on it and I view it.The internet on the other hand empowers me to voice out my opinions and get feedback on these opinions right away. However, not all information on the internet is reliable. The ease of creating a website has made information coming from average Joes look indi stinguishable from those of erudite academics and authorities. Ease of finding information on the internet has made people unwilling to do explore the old way, by going to libraries and referencing known authors and peer-reviewed journals or articles.Now, they are just more likely to take as true the first results that Google or Wikipedia gives out. Also, the internet has given seedy people and organizations a plain outlet to promote disreputable activities and information. Hate groups, suicidal organizations, and child pornographers have apply the internet to further their docket and reach more potential victims. I found myself in an embarrassing situation once when I accessed pornography on the internet by accident. The thing with the internets ease of providing information is that it makes people think less.It makes us dependent on websites and search engines instead of enforcing our research and information validation skills. It lessens creativity and makes us unable to di scern which information is true or false, which fact is correct or incorrect, and what is virtuously good or bad. The Cyber Community The internet has truly made the world a smaller break through as it enabled people to meet more individuals from different backgrounds and different parts of the world. It has created a worldwide meeting place where people could seek out people who share their interests and values.I myself am a member of this community by my blog. My blog allows me to connect to other people just as reading other peoples blogs give me a connection and insight into their lives. My blog also satisfies my need desire for recognition by giving me my own personal space to decorate and post my own thoughts to be seen by the world at large. Another nice thing about the cyber community is that unlike the real community, the internet gives its users a blanket of anonymity. This anonymity gives its users the independence to express their own opinions without fear that it wil l reflect on them badly.Also, it allows users the freedom to talk things and or problems which could be considered socially embarrassing or taboo. On the other hand, anonymity also empowers people by protecting them from responsibility from wrongdoing. Anyone can read my blog and leave scathing and psychologically damaging comments without revealing who they very are. Also, it makes one think less of others as people are decrease to a few lines of text on a webpage or chat room. Unlike the real community, the cyber community is impersonal and has no intimacy. Another side effect of being part of the cyber community is addiction.I may be guilty of this to some degree. I tend to overuse the internet and in the continual tog of opening internet web pages. You could say that like an addict, I cannot live without the internet. Just like nub abuse, I have grown a dependence on the internet and the cyber community it brings. Conclusion In retrospect, the Internet has really changed th e way I lived my life. I am exposed to plenty of empowering technologies that generations of people before me could only dream about. The world is smaller because of it and for the most part better because of it.And it is getting better all the time, newer applications that make life better through the internet are still being made at a rapid pace. On the other hand, the internet is a tool which could also be used for low-down deeds. Internet users with shady interests have used the internet to cause harm and promote their foul agenda. As members of the cyber community, one needs to be wary of these things as it may leave one defenseless to anything from damage to your computer to damaging scrutiny or even more serious crimes like identity theft. In retrospect, is the internet worth it?For me, even with its downsides, the internet is still a blessing to be treasured. It really does make my life easier and allows me to do more things that were unthinkable of even just 50 years ago . mavin just has to be conscious about how he or she uses the internet. As always, even on the internet, parkland sense should prevail and one should not forsake traditionally held values such as extending courtesy, doing beseeming research and others even is one is shielded by anonymity in the cyber community of the internet.References Irvine, Marthat. (2004, December 5). young Adopt, Drive Technological Advances. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 31A. Staples, Brent. (2004, May 29). What Adolescents Miss When We Let Them Grow Up In Cyberspace. New York Times, , A24. Leiner, Barry M. , et. al.. (n. d. ). A Brief History of the Internet. In Internet Society.Retrieved April 22, 2007, from http//www. isoc. org/internet/history/brief. shtml. 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