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Internet is considered undoubtedly the most revolutionizing technology ever introduced that has reached the common people in the smallest period of time. Technologies like television and telephone took 20-30 years to be a household name, while Internet took 4-5 years to reach almost every home across the globe regardless of the culture, society or country. Since then Internet has impacted our social and daily life in several ways both positive and negative. It has completely redefined various aspects of our life. This essay will highlight certain aspects of our life that have been completely changed due to internet.
Why People Use Internet
According to a recent research by Pew Internet summarized the stats regarding the common usage of internet among people. The stats showed that almost 92% people use Internet to research and use information, 85% believe that Internet is the best communication channel for all kinds of communication, 75% use internet for business or other transactions and 69% used Internet as a way to entertain. Considering these four major areas of Internet usage the following section will briefly analyze these areas with and without Internet.
Internet has impacted and changed almost everything our daily life was made of. People communicate across the globe, take classes remotely, buy as simple as flowers to as expensive product as cars online and running solely online businesses with no traditional shop or office. All this was unimaginable some years ago but is a part of our life.
Information Access
Before Internet research and information retrieval was associated with libraries. The process was tedious and often frustrating as accessing the exact information took hours of searching through books and journals manually. The information retrieval was limited within the areas accessible to a person, often it was hard or impossible to access information from remote areas such as different countries, details like stats , facts and news were hard to keep updated. Internet changed the information research and retrieval completely. It took some clicks to access any information from anywhere in the world. Online repositories and libraries provided everything anyone would want in no time. Secondly, Internet made it possible to access and use the most updated news, stats or facts regarding anything. However, the information available on the internet has to be scrutinized properly to ensure that its genuine unlike the libraries where the information was guaranteed to be genuine.
Communication
The most important and revolutionizing impact of Internet is undoubtedly the way people communicate in everyday life. The current generation cannot imagine their social life without Internet. 10-15 years ago common people would not have thought that all the other communication channels will be replaced with a single technology. Before chat, email and the social networking phones and letters were the common form of communication. Networking and PR meant meeting people and communicating in person, Internet however provided more faster and robust medium of communication between people. The current social networking concept has made people more addicted to internet and isolated from people. According to studies people now prefer communicating through internet more than meeting the same people in person. The communication channels of Internet are faster but have made people isolated socially.
Business & Transaction
Even after Internet was widely accepted, most people stayed away from sharing their financial information online. Before internet medium and small scale businesses had a limited market, audience and visibility. Most of these businesses could not access foreign markets due to time differences between different countries. Traditionally businesses marketed and promoted themselves through print media which could only reach a limited audience. The advent of internet changed the face of business completely. The web presence of businesses gave them a marketing medium to reach the entire world, secondly it allowed anyone to reach them at any time without worrying about the time and geographical location for information. The next generation of online businesses allowed making transactions online for their customers and achieved an always open advantage.
Entertainment
Of all the above aspects Internet has replaced all other forms of entertainment and has actually made all sorts of entertainment available at a single click. Before the Internet people accessed mediums like television and movies for entertainment. Studies show that since Internet has enabled people to access music, movies and programs, people no longer prefer buying these or keeping their favorite selections as in previous times. In addition to this, the new breed of most interactive games available on Internet has revolutionized the way people play games. The readily available entertainment content on the Internet and that too freely has several issues regarding age appropriateness however most of the content is available for anyone anywhere.
Conclusion
Internet has already revolutionized our life and it is expected to change more as the technology is still improving and incorporating more features. To summarize the advent of internet has made many aspects of our daily life more easy and robust, it has provided the medium to do things from the comfort of our homes avoiding unwanted hurdles. While there are more positive effects but Internet has proven to be an addiction for most users especially those in their teenagers and have made them more isolated ,alienated and depressed as compared to other age groups. As it is quoted in the book “The Internet In Everyday Life”,
The Internet is not about technology, it is not about information, it is about
communication – people talking to each other, people exchanging email The Internet
is a community of chronic communicators.
Works Cited
Fallows, Deborah. "The Internet and Daily Life." 2004. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2004/PIP_Internet_and_Daily_Life.pdf.pdf.
Wellman, Caroline Haythornthwaite and Barry. THE INTERNET IN EVERYDAY LIFE: AN INTRODUCTION. Backwell Publishers, 2002. http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/everdayintro/Haythornthwaite_Wellman_intro.PDF.
