General System Theory and the Internet Design Idea - Essay Example

The idea of the Internet was developed by Paul Baran in 1960s. Baran was working then with the RAND Company, which specialized in US military operations. The idea matured under the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). As Sykttner points out (2006), Baran’s idea was to develop a big communication system which would be used in passing information between military research computers. The US military by then was under the threat of a nuclear attack, and the existing long-distance telephone plants that were used for communication could not withstand a nuclear attack.

Baran came up with the idea of establishing a network with no centralized switches, which could still operate even if many of the switching nodes were destroyed by a nuclear attack. The idea was first perceived as unrealistic and impossible but Baran worked on it, and it became successful. Initially, the APRANET, as it came to be known, was used by the US defence but later was adopted by military researchers and eventually spread to various universities. It was later named as Internet spreading to all nations.

Nowadays it links people despite their geographical location and, hence, it is commonly referred to as the World Net or the Web (Bargh & McKenna, 2004). The Internet has grown to be the most widely used means of communication. According to Tom (2002), it can be described as being non-centralized and unplanned. This is because it has given people the freedom to choose who to communicate with, what to communicate and even what to hear. The Internet has broken geographical boundaries and connected people worldwide.

Internet widespread use has brought hot debates all over the world.Taking a general system theory perspective, the Internet has had major positive impacts on social, political, economical, and even spiritual aspects of society. Internet is used for research purposes. Learners around the globe are able to connect and share information from all parts of the world. Politicians get useful information on the politics of their country and other countries over the same network. Economically, the commercial sector has benefited a lot from the Internet and has utilized it as the main medium of advertising and selling their products.

However, as Sykttner (2006) points out, the Internet is facing threats from the same qualities that contributed to its growth. It is argued that uncontrolled use of the Internet has caused a lot of chaos in many countries. The Internet has been misused mainly by the commercial sector in advertising fake product or goods that do not meet the prescribed qualities. Youths under the age of 18 years have access to pornography through the net. It is argued that this leads to irresponsible behavior such as cyberbullying and other social evils.

Another critique on the use of the Internet relates to a degree of privacy offered to peoples’ personal and secret information.