Impact of the Internet on Society and Culture - Essay Example

Impact of Internet on Society and Culture Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure (Carr) A world without computers or internet is unimaginable at present. Most of the segments of human life are currently controlled by computers and internet. Internet is currently used for; purchasing essential commodities from shops, conducting home based business, instant communication with anybody in the world, paying bills for the essential services received, conducting marketing activities, ecommerce activities, education, video gaming etc. The living standards of the public increased a lot as a result of the introduction of internet. Nobody has any doubt about the contributions of internet in enhancing communication. No other medium is capable of communicating with people as quickly as internet does. Social networking services like facebook, myspace, orkut etc are helping the people to share information instantly and effectively in a virtual world. When it comes to instant communication, internet always gets priority over other channels of communication. Communication is an area in which internet brought revolutionary changes in the society. Earlier, print sources, television, radio etc were the prominent media of communication in the society. However, these media are incapable of delivering instant information to the public as internet does. Newspapers and televisions require enough time to collect news, edit it, and print/transmit it to the readers/viewers. On the other hand, internet is capable of delivering the news instantly to the public. In fact internet succeeded in developing a new style of reading as noted by Nicholas Carr in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense (Carr). The difficulties and problems associated in locating specific information in newspapers or printed sources have been eliminated with the introduction of electronic media like internet. It is easy for the readers to eliminate unwanted information quickly so that they can concentrate more only on the specific information they were searching for while using internet. It is a fact that most of the newspapers contain large number of advertisements and the retrieval of specific information from newspaper is difficult. Internet provides answer to such messed up reading styles; it helps the readers to avoid unwanted things instantly and to locate the required information instantly. The enhancement of communication using internet resulted in the development of new life styles in the society. Earlier, people visit the houses of their friends and relatives to exchange their regards and greetings. Now all such things are happening in the virtual world. For sending, birth day greetings, wedding invitations and greetings etc people are making use of internet. It is a fact that virtual socializing gives enough flexibility in sending greetings and conveying ideas. The introduction of internet and the subsequent development of social networking services helped the people to increase their virtual socializing activities more than their real face to face socializing activities. It is possible to communicate with anybody through internet even when a person travels from one place to another. Audio and video conferencing facilities provided by internet help people to communicate with others just like a face to face meeting. “The mobile workforce requires people to travel more frequently for work, leaving friends and family behind, and members of the growing army of the self-employed often spend their days in solitude” (Thompson). Earlier it was difficult for a person working in a distant place to communicate with his beloved ones effectively. The development of mobile phone technologies helped such people up to certain extent. However, the development of internet technologies made it possible to such people to exchange not only their voices, but also their videos and pictures. Using a webcam such people can communicate with the beloved ones just like they communicate in a real world. However, virtual world communication definitely has certain disadvantages. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski (Carr) Some of the experts argue that internet addiction may sometimes reduce the thinking abilities of people. Since every bit of knowledge is readily available on internet, children will use internet for everything and they seldom use their brains. “Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes” (Carr). Such easiness in collecting information is serving as a blessing and curse at the same time. Continuous brain activities are necessary for opening up and growth of mental faculties. When information are readily available on internet, people use their brain sparingly and the under usage of brain may decrease their numerical ability, analytical skills and problem solving skills. At the same time it should be noted that the enormous time saved by people in researching specific information in libraries can be better utilized for other activities, if they use internet. For example, a person who likes to know more about a specific topic in nuclear energy should go to a public library and search books related to nuclear energy. After the selection of books, he should search the entire pages manually for retrieving the specific information he was looking for. This type of manual retrieval of information may take several hours; however, using internet, he can retrieve same information within minutes. Anonymous communication is another area developed as part of developments in internet communication. It is easy for people to create a virtual identity and communicate with others. Psychologists and sociologists spent years wondering how humanity would adjust to the anonymity of life in the city, the wrenching upheavals of mobile immigrant labor — a world of lonely people ripped from their social ties. We now have precisely the opposite problem. Indeed, our modern awareness tools reverse the original conceit of the Internet. When cyberspace came along in the early ’90s, it was celebrated as a place where you could reinvent your identity — become someone new (Thompson) Virtual identity helps people to hide their real identity. In other words, cyber world helps people hide their demerits and project their merits only. Many marriages are currently taking place with the help of internet and social networking sites like, facebook, orkut, myspace etc. Exchange of photos, pictures and ideas are taking place between teenagers using social networking services which may quiet often end up in marriages. However, there are many cases in which such marriages end up in failure because of the inability of the couples in realizing the real identity of the partner. At the same time it should be noted that virtual identity helps people to communicate with more people in the world. For example, facebook is providing us opportunities not only to communicate with our friends, but also with the friends of our friends. “Online awareness inevitably leads to a curious question: What sort of relationships are these? What does it mean to have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook? What kind of friends are they, anyway?” (Thompson). It is possible to get a friend from Africa or Asia for a person living in America using internet. It is not necessary that these people know anything about each other. However, they can still exchange their ideas and information, keeping their identity anonymous. Thus the possibility of getting anonymous friends is more while using social networking services. Moreover, facebook provides us opportunity to learn more about the activities of our friends instantly. “News Feed is central to Facebook’s success. Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive” (Thompson). Some people argue that such news feeds are unnecessary. At the same time such things will definitely strengthen the effectiveness of communication. To conclude, internet has brought revolutionary changes in communications. Enormous amount of time can be saved for retrieving information using internet. Unwanted things can be eliminated instantly while retrieving information using internet. Internet has opened another stream of communication which can be labeled as virtual world communication. Virtual world communication helps us to communicate with anybody in the world anytime we like and that also using an anonymous identity. Works Cited 1. Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. Web. 27 May 2011. 2. Thompson, Clive. “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy”. 2008. The New York Times. September 5, 2008. Web. 27 May 2011. Read More