The Impact of The Internet on Society's Everyday Life

Introduction: In simple terms internet is a unique mediocre that allows any person to access the world, it is one such influential weapon with which one can do almost everything. ‘The Internet’, the bad to good lives changer… and also the good to bad lives changer… Internet can change our lives from the worst to the best or from the best to the worst depending on how you use it. The internet technology which we use is able to change the way we live nowadays (21st century) as compared to the other past centuries. Background: The internet has now become a drug which we all cannot resist for instance everything can be done in just one click or so; shopping, undertaking homework, to order food, to access banking services, booking tickets, purchasing insurance, communicating with people all over the world just to mention a few. However internet also has negative impacts in our daily life. It makes us loose our sense in reality and distracting us from our daily life activities. For example: Due to internet people now have a tendency of shooting photos or even texting each other while eating. People no longer interact with others physical instead they interact on internet platforms. One of the biggest loud criticisms of the internet is that it has always been the best loneliness contributor among its users.

According to http://www.internetlivestats.com/ in 2016 approximately 3,424,971,237 people are using the internet. The latter is developing argumentative and rude communication skills and languages, beliefs, behaviors, and values in society. Internet impact on humanity is now making economic, social, and political variations around the globe. Internet has changed our lives in every means and there is no hesitation about it as some of us are motivated to follow decent habits after the internet, but most fall into immoral habits. Thesis statement: In the end, it’s easy to say that negative or positive uses of the internet are dependent on us. But if we will think communally about each other’s actions and reactions we can make the internet to be the most fascinating platform.

Topic sentence: There is no uncertainty that the internet has made our life become cooler and more suitable. We can use the internet to communicate with people around the globe, doing business by the internet, making new friends, learning about different cultures, studying, searching for information etc... It does not only permit for communication via email but also guarantees easy accessibility of information, images and products amongst other things. The internet changes almost every day by offering new elements that may be beneficial in our daily life. Commentary: Internet if used in the correct and in a careful manner then it is the greatest powerful and valuable thing one can have.

Topic sentence: As it is known the internet is the most powerful tool in the world and it has played a major role in our daily life above all it is an essential tool when it comes to communication. Its main objective has been communication all along, guess what? Evidence & citing: With the internet we can communicate at the comfort zone of our homes for long hours without having to leave the homesteads. Global friendships are established through the internet where by you can explore different cultures from other countries. Internet makes people to interact with others through different platforms such as applications and many more, online games role-playing, social networks and many more. Commentary: This is good because communication has been made easier and faster. For example, if someone in Africa wants to communicate with someone in United State of America, he or she can send an email then the message will take few seconds to reach the other person. He then gets his feedback in less than an hour. Unlike in the olden centuries where by someone had to travel all the way from his country to another country, which took them some weeks or even some months. Through internet people can also create tournament games and play online with people from different countries. This helps in saving time and money for travelling. Although it is faster and cheaper, these improvements have now hampered the physical interaction skills of people. Evidence & citing: It leads to people not knowing how to interact with other people when they physically meet in-person, they don’t even know the gestures they have to carry. It also leads to abandoning of face-to-face interactions where family bonds, family relationships and others can be enhanced. Commentary: This is a big problem that has impacted our day to day living styles.

Topic sentence: Internet is very important when it comes to business or organizations. Evidence & citing: People in an organization can easily communicate and share information. People buy and sell their goods online. Businesses market their products using internet and this make it easier for people far from them to know about their existence. It is easier for them to know about their competitors. If a company or an organization urgently wants to hire personnel for any position, they can advertise the positions using internet. The advertisement will be seen by many people in a short period of time as compared to when the advert is posted on walls or bill boards. If the applications are for the same post are seen and replied through the same mode. Example; if the respondent reply using the email, then the feedback arrives on the same day. As compared to a person who is applying through the post office. He will have to write an application letter and send it through the post office; if it’s on a holiday then the postman will send the letters after holiday have finished. Again it takes time to read application on hard copies than on softcopies. Commentary: This on its own makes internet to be a good thing.

Topic sentence: Apart from communication the internet is a fundamental treasure of information. It has a bigger contribution when it comes to sharing of information. Evidence & citing: Where there is internet there are full of different sites and all information that you can think of in this whole world can be found on those different sites. There are news websites like CNN, BBC, sky news, daily news online and many more. In these sites you can read and know what is happening around you. There are also social networking websites such as face-book, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, pinterest and many more. In the internet you can also find websites that provide information on different businesses and organizations around the world, this information can state the type of business they are carrying out and their websites as well. Commentary: Any kind of information on any topic is readily accessible on the internet by just clicking on the topic of interest per subject matter. It is very useful for students who usually gather information to do their homework.

Topic sentence: Another popular reason as to why people are surfing the internet at higher rates is entertainment. Internet is also a mode of entertainment to us. Evidence & citing: We use it for different entertainment purposes such as listening to music online, downloading movies and music, playing games, reading news and visiting some chat rooms. There are so many ways of getting entertainment from the internet such as watching television shows online, watching videos and even streaming some sports activities. Commentary: The way this technology is advancing the more the better and the worse our lives are. Evidence & citing: In the next coming years there will be no one going to the theatre because people think that their advanced computers makes everything more realistic and much better special effects than the theatres. This on its own is going to cause a very big negative impact because we are going to lose our beautiful theatres due to the internet. Nowadays internet user rapidly spread memes that negatively affects our daily lives.

Topic sentence: Education has been made easy with the internet; carrying out school researches has been made more fun and enjoyable. Instead of a student physically going to the library, spending time and money on travelling, they just go into internet and spend less hours reading those books and researching from encyclopedia (Wikipedia) and other sites. All the languages can be translated to other languages this means that the information can be shared among people of different tribes, believes and countries. Even though this has an advantage to the researchers or students, it negatively affects those owning the libraries. They lose in their business since only few people come to the library for books. Those owning taxis will also be impacted negatively because the number of students that need to be transported to the libraries will also decrease. Due to internet people don’t spend more of their time gazing at their computer screens anymore after class or after work, instead they just go online everywhere at all times when they need to using their mobile devices. Internet has made a big impact in all levels of education starting from primary up to tertiary level. Teachers can create, share knowledge and develop ways of educating and learning to the students through internet. Students can work as a team not restricted by physical or time constraints. This can also have a negative impact to the internet non-user students. They might be loneliness between the no-user students who are physical sitting in the same room with the internet user students. The internet user student will be busy researching with other group of students while the non-user student will be lonely and may end up being depressed as there is no one to talk to. Evidence & citing: These days, use of mobile phones for internet purposes has become a routine and number of mobile consumer accessing the Internet is surpassing fixed line internet users (M. Kumar, 2011). Learning is a procedure and it is part of our daily lives. Modern technology has made it simple for students to learn from anyplace through online education and mobile education. Commentary: Also, students now use modern technology in classrooms to learn better. For example, students use iPads to share visual lessons and examples with peers in the classroom. The internet has made education more convenient and fun.

Topic sentence: Internet has its own pros and cons, it can be very useful to us and similarly it can be used to destroy/harm someone also. Commentary: Internet has given rise to cybercrime of which mostly teenagers, youngsters, celebrities and people with high standards of living become victims. Sufferers of cyber bulling may feel be-littled, embarrassed, some lose confidence and others end up attempting suicide because of the negative opinions/ comments they get from cyber-crime committers. Evidence & citing: Cyber bulling is increasing at an alarming rate due to wrongfully using the internet this finding is also in line with Glor’s finding, who found out that cyberbullying is also becoming a common trend where we find rude comments and insulting words that one will never use in person. Glor further outlined that soccer star Alexis Pilkington, 17, took her own life on March 21, 2010, following social disturbances from social networking sites. Misuse of the internet generated fraud which left many people without their property. Also people are being deceived to buy wrongfully advertised products which are totally different from the original ones. Evidence & citing: On the other hand the internet landed a hand in the cause of insomnia, people are reluctant to rest or sleep due to surfing the internet at night because it is believed that it is much faster at night as compared to during the day. Commentary: Not getting enough time to rest or to sleep yields many health problems, this affects physical growth and mental growth. Therefore refrain from surfing the internet at night in order to build a good routine of sleeping and safe yourself from health problems.

Topic sentence: Internet is the most addictive drug that is powerful, in most cases you will find internet users glued to their screens. Continuous glowering at the screen might be the cause for poor eye sight and headaches. Online games and social networking websites such as facebook, whatsapp, twitter, skype, Instagram, hi5, linked-in and many more… are the main source of attraction. Commentary: People cannot resist the green light when it comes to these social media platforms because they are curious to know what is in there and once you are in you cannot go out. Evidence & citing: Based on the statistics given by Stanford University 13.7 percent of people found it difficult to get away from the internet for about number of days at a time. The internet addiction is a major concern as it affects young people in different ways, from lack of sleep, to social withdrawal and poor grades. According to Glor, (p.1), addictive surfing can have severe impact on mental health, “ internet addicts’’ spent proportionally more time browsing sexually satisfying websites, online gaming sites and online communities. They replace real-life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites and this in time is replacing normal social function, which might have a link to psychological disorders like depression and addiction. Children who are not denied access to the internet can find information that is not appropriate to them such as pornography, nudes, wrestling and sexting which will affect their well-being. Being absorbed by the laptop, tablet or cellphone makes people to eat unhealthy food as they will be consuming lot of snacks, stay up until late hours which in turn give rise to obesity due to lack of exercising.

Topic sentence: The excessive use of almost everything continuously generates side effects, according to the study by Kraut et al. (1998). Evidence & citing: The results showed that the increased usage of internet was associated with the decline in participant’s interactions with their family members within their households. Commentary: When society spend most of their precious time surfing the internet they become unresponsive to the real life situations and people around them including the family members. This reduced their social circle and increased the levels of loneliness and depression in families as the time for family is swapped by hours consumed on internet browsing. Evidence & citing: It was also reported later by Nie and Erbring (2000) in the national survey they carried out in the United States which showed that Internet users reported to be spending lesser time with their families and friends than the non-users, as the amount of internet usage of exploring the variety of medicated social activities that involve physical contact with other people.

Conclusion paragraph: In conclusion the internet has become one of the greatest invention of today’s world and it made life to become extremely even and easy over the internet. The internet is ahead of us it has turned our lives upside down. It creates new advanced ways to communicate, share information and study online amongst others. The internet will continue to impact the life of people negatively and positively, it is upon us to make the decisions that will benefit us all at the very end. If not monitered, internet usage leads to severe addiction. The encounter with technology is a dynamic and a constant process predictable to bring about innovative challenges each day, the future is overflowing with opportunities and the forthcoming of the internet has just commenced.

References

1. Amichai-Hamburger, & Zack Hayat – computers in human behavior, 2011.
2. Glor, Jeff. ‘‘Cyberbullying Continued After Teens Death.’’ New York, NY: CBS Interactive Inc. March 29, 2010. Web.
3. LM Hinman –Ethics and information technology, 2002-researchgate.net
4. Kumar, M. (2011). Impact of the evolution of smart phones in education technology and its application in technical and professional studies: Indian perspective. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT), 3(3), 39-49.
5. Phillip EN Howard, Lee Rainie, Steve Jones – American behavioral scientist 45 (3), 383 -404, 2001 Retrieved 24 January 2020, from http://www.internetlivestats.com/