The Internet : A Game Changer?

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The Internet: a game changer? Developed during the last decades of the 20th century, the Internet has now become a part of our everyday lives. Having grown up with the Internet, I have seen how it gradually became an essential tool of our modern society and having read an article about the changes brought by the Internet recently, it made me thinking about its real impact which is often overlooked because of how gradual the changes were. It also reminded me of my lessons of philosophy about technology in high school. What is the Internet currently? The Internet is huge global network of computers and more broadly digital devices but its use remains the same from the beginning: the exchange of information, the only difference being the astonishing amount of data currently available and the extensive use of it. It enable people to share files from all around the world and from this point of view it can be considered as an incredible area of freedom. Amidst the numerous use of the Internet, I would like to discuss more specifically about social networks because they can symbolize our ‘’digitalized ‘’ society in an especially striking way according to me. Social networks such as Facebook or even YouTube or LinkedIn are interesting because they show how the Internet broaden our possibilities, distance has become an irrelevant restrictive factor and you can share things with numerous people for example. However from this point on we can see that the Internet tends to modify the objects of our social interactions: what is shared on the Internet is dematerialized and in order to be shared on the Internet, more and more we tend to digitalize things and that is precisely a double edged sword, we are more and more bound to the Internet t... ... middle of paper ... ...the ethical values but too often citizens are not informed enough. On the contrary according to me the Internet is growing social and ethical issue. Then it makes it clear that understanding programming or Internet systems is a key to master the Internet instead of being ruled by the Internet. However too often, there is a lack of interest and those who got the technical skills disregard their responsibilities, preferring to work for big companies. It is also up to each society to consider the growing issue of online privacy. Nevertheless the Internet is also a vector of active democratic involvement. It was the case with hackers helping the Arab spring by giving encrypted and protected access to Internet. To sum up, issues about the Internet are at the heart of our modern and connected society, it will shape our future and that is why they should not be neglected.

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