Effect of the Internet on Society
The internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use standard internet protocol suite (IP) to serve billions of users worldwide (Wikipedia. org). This system has been around for a while now and has revolutionalized communication turning the world from a local village into a global one.It has revolutionalized communication, education, business and eased flow of information between individuals, governments, private sector and developed various individual user platforms for further interaction such as e-commerce platforms The internet has also posed as having a negative impact on how societies operate.
It has made easily available most inappropriate materials for example: pornography, sensitive intelligence material (wiki leaks) etc. It has also led to addiction behavior among fanatics and this has led to neglect due to this dependency and thus overall breakdown of moral values and institutions e. . marriage. The internet has also been a brewing ground for crime across borders. The focus of this paper will be to highlight these impacts on various areas of societal development. On a personal note, even though it has a few limitations, the internet still remains to be one of man’s greatest and most valuable inventions after the wheel.
Positive impacts of the internet: It has revolutionalized and improved the means of communication which is seen with continuous development of numerous applications that are fully dependent on it.A few examples include; email, fax, instant messaging, online TV and radio stations and many other means of communication. In addition, businesses and how they are transacted have experienced a major boost or makeover due to the presence of the internet. Business portals like e-commerce, online forex trading etc are current frontiers in business and commerce over the internet. These ensure that businesses can be transacted anywhere around the globe regardless of geographical barriers and enjoy access to a global 24 hour market over the internet. This has greatly improved economies.Furthermore, new methods of business models like the business process outsourcing (BPO) owe their existence solely to the internet.
Another industry that has improved due to the internet is the communications industry. Methods of communication have changed over the past two decades and these changes owe their existence to the internet. Nowadays its common for governments and parastatals to provide real time information using internet based methods e. g. sites like facebook. com Finally, the internet has become a major source of employment to young people across the world.In fact, countries like Singapore and India are major business process hubs.
This has also created young millionaires. Negative impacts of the internet On the darker side, the internet has also been seen as a menace to society in the sense that it has had its fair share of disappointment and a major source of heartache to humanity. As it continued to revolutionalize over the years, criminals developed better syndicates, sophisticating their art and build better criminal networks across the world causing huge losses to individuals and organizations across the world.The internet has also led to phenomenal increase in fraud. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), over 60 US and Canadian Federal State and Non Governmental Organizations report a sharp increase in internet fraud as at 2010. This has gone out of control that the Federal Government advice to individuals is to be careful in their transactions! In addition to crime, exposure of unsuitable material is common place across the web; for example sensitive government documents have found their way on the web in recent times which has had a negative toll on diplomatic relations between countries involved (Wiki leaks).Others like pornography and the advent of webcams has increased the risk of indecent exposure and thus evidence of deteriorating moral values in society.
Finally, the internet has regrettably put strains on interpersonal relationships by decreasing contact between individuals. This has led to breakup of institutions e. g. marriage or even collapse of organizations that are dependent on the internet as a means of communication. ConclusionIn conclusion, it cannot be said that the internet is the main cause of problems or challenges that are facing the society. The fundamentals mean that the society has been experiencing underlying problems and has been deteriorating even without internet. Therefore, I strongly believe that the internet has been of great importance to society albeit with the few challenges facing it.
Reference Federal Trade commission, 2010, Internet fraud, Increased fraud index 2010. www. USA. gov, Retrieved 07/12/2010,Http://www. USA. gov/..
/internet_fraud. shtml.
