The Influence of the Internet on Modern Society

This essay focuses on the impact that the interent has had on modern society. I will give a brief history of the internet, talking about its origins and the key developments that have occured up until now. Then look at how the internet has changed society so far, including how it has changed social interactions, e-commerce and jobs. Also discussing the advantages and disadvatages of the interent and if we are better of with the internet, how i think the internet will develop and finally drawing my own personal conclusion.

History of the internet - Before the invention of practical computers, people had visioned concepts of the internet Mountbatten, (1946 cited in Naughton,2000) thought that "Morse operators would be replaced by automatic apparatus  a single unified world-wide network of stations would be set up over which messages would be passed automatically. " Mountbatten's theory is simular to the function of e-mails. The term "father of the internet" has been thrown abouut, this is because so many people have contributed to the development of the internet three names always occur Vannevar Bush, Norbert Wiener and J. C. R Licklider. My personal opinion is that it was Paul Baran, this is because of his work on packet switched networks Naughton, (2000) "The core of Baran's algorithm was a constantly updated table containg data about how many 'hops' were needed for a message to reach every other node in the system. " This is the idea of packet switching. The first form of the public internet was developed by CERN and invented by Tim Berners-lee he was the first person to communicate from a HTTP client to a server via the internet.

Since the internet has become avaliable it has had millions of users, the internet have expanded vastly from being able to communicate from one computer to another to having television channels broadcasted live. How the internet has changed society so far. Society has been able to become socially active online with social networking sites such as facebook, myspace and Instant messaging services, i think the reason this has become popular is because these websites and programs are free and the ease of access, allowing people anywhere to talk to anyone in the world providing they have internet access.

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High street stores, have developed websites to advertise what they have instore online, giving the user the abilty to buy the product online and have it delivered to their house without having to go to the high street, i see this as a great advantage to people who live in remote locations, do not have mobile transport or are unable to travel, having an online store appeals to alot more people and gives the comapny a larger market.

The internet has created many jobs, with the development of servers people are needed to maintain them, well as website developers and people needed to develop new technologies for the internet. Banks now allow customers to monitor their accounts online, “49% of internet users access internet banking. ” giving them more control over their account and they can check themselves. I personally think that this is a bad idea because of the risk of fraud and people becoming paranoid about their money, on the other hand account holders can also keep track of their finances incase illegal transactions are taking place.

Thanks to the internet employees can work from anywhere, saving office space and capital costs on bulidings, i think that this has changed alot of workplace ethics, social workplace interaction has changed because employees are not working together in one place, although if employees are happy to work from home they may have higher job satisfaction. The benefits of the internet In the following paragraph i will discuss the advantage of the internet in modern day society. The interent has created new was of communication, such s instant messaging and video confencing but i think that the biggest influence is e-mail "The use of e-mail is having a great impact on society. " E-mail has changed communication that now businesses use it. “E-mail is a very fast way to work that reflects very well the nature of business today. ” because of its efficiency, cost and ease of use e-mail has become a favoured method of communication. Business has thived on the internet, internet business are able to reach a wider market "Through the internet, a business of any size can compete in the global marketplace.

In fact, on the internet, the size of an organization's operation makes little difference because the internet is an open environment. " because anyone has access to the internet businesses can reach anyone also giving the customer a wider choice of products. The internet has also seen new markets for jobs appear "over the last decade or so the Internet has created 1. 2 million jobs, many paying higher salaries than average. " because of the new developments there are more people needed to perform research maintain and manage these areas of the internet.

The dangers of the internet. In this paragraph i will be looking at the disadvantages of the internet. There are dangers of online communication such as social networks where users can lie about who they are “Megan thought she was being abused by 16-year-old Josh Evans, she was actually talking to Lori Drew, the 49-year-old mother of one of her former friends who, it is alleged, had set up a fake profile to taunt Megan. ” in social networking sites it is very easy for people to lie about who they are and trick other people.

Businesses using online transactions have become victim to cyber-crime, there are many forms of cyber-crime, hacking involves gaining information without the users permission and misusing it, Cyber-crime is a huge part crime in todays society and is still growing “Online theft costs $1 trillion a year, the number of attacks is rising sharply and too many people do not know how to protect themselves” because many businesses don't know how to protect themselves are being preyed on by hackers.

Since e-mails have become mainstream less letters have been sent  “The impact of the internet and other communication technologies, such as mobile phones, has been so great that it has actually severed the link between the postal market and economic growth. ” this decline in the postal market may be “the rapid increase of internet access, with 70% of homes in the UK now online. ” and also “87% of internet users send e-mails. ” because so many people have access to the internet and e-mails post is becoming redundant.

If the benefits outways the dangers In this paragraph I will draw a conclusion on whether the benefits of the internet outway the dangers. Businesses have hugely benefitted from the internet with the access to a wider market, but a major disadvantage is cyber-crime one crime in specific fraud. I beleive the advantage outways the disadvantage because there are many ways businesses can protect themselves against fraud with software and training.

Social networks have a huge advantage of being able to communicate with vast amounts of people from anywhere at any time, but people many younger internet users are targeted and negatively influenced over these sites, these influences can be stopped if the correct action can be taken a careful use of these sites. There have been so many jobs created by the internet because of all the new markets being created, aswell as all of these jobs being created many jobs have been lost “55,000 jobs lost since 2002.  There have been many more jobs created than lost so far so i see the internet being an advantage.  The internet has vastly changed society through the many different areas that i have looked at, communication has greatly benefitted by having fast, easy and cheap communication, businesses have been able to reach a larger market and customers can choose from a wider range of products, more skilled jobs have been created.

The internet has also created negative aspects such as communication and businesses have experienced crime and online bullying, also many jobs have been lost because less people are using some services that the internet can now provide. My own personal experience of the internet has been of all of the areas discussed and i have always had good experiences.

In conclusion the internet has created so many new jobs and markets rather than taken them away, as “70% of homes in the UK now online. ” it has affect a huge amount of the UK society and had a positive affect or people wouldn't use it.

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