The Internet

The Internet

The Internet is an electronic series of virtual networks that link

people and information through computers and other digital devices,

allowing peer to peer communication and information retrieval. The

Internet was first developed in the late 1960's by the US government.

The Internet however was not publicly available until 1982; with the

use of GUI's increasing the numbers owning computers, the Internet

became widely available and commercial interests grew. Access and use

of the resource spread rapidly, the number of American users grew from

25 million in 1995 (when only 3% of people had ever used the Internet)

to 83 million in 1999, with 55 million of those going online in a

typical day. The amount of information available on the Internet has

also risen greatly, from less than 20,000 Web sites in 1995 to over 10

million in 2000, containing over two billion Web pages, with as many

as two million pages added daily.

The focus for this essay is the impact of the Internet on the society,

and how it affects people both pro and anti socially.

Social interaction is one main point raised by many when evaluating

the Internet. With people increasingly spending more time on machines

it is said they spend less time actively participating, socially with

others. The Internet can allow people to be connected to the world 24

hours a day, possibly isolating people from the world by reducing

interpersonal communication. This isolation can therefore create

loneliness.People can get into situation where all they have is cyber

friends, which they never meet and speak to face to face with real

people in the flesh.

Norman Nie is...

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... But, developing a good web page and

Internet marketing can be very expensive and requires a lot of time

and special expertise/knowledge, many small businesses cannot afford

this. Internet web sites can be used by different cultural groups to

promote activities and understanding of their views and connect

similarly minded people together around the world. However racist

groups can put up web sites under the area of free speech and it is

very difficult to shut them down.

In conclusion, I personally believe that the Internet is valuable and

useful resource which similar to many things when used properly

doesn't cause any harm and it potentially very beneficial to everyone.

However when misused, it can become detrimental to those who use it,

promote anti-social behaviors and other such activities which are

negative.