The Effects of Internet
The Internet is one of the most important inventions in the history of humankind. Since the early 2000s, the Internet has developed and become the indispensable factor in the modern world. It has completely changed our world and societies in many aspects in both positive and negative ways. The Internet not only connects people all around the world, creates new types of professions, changes the communication and trading methods in the past, makes our lives more comfortable and convenient, but also causes negative effects to societies.
Internet connects and brings people all over the world closer. By the births of a number of interactive social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, people now can easily interact and contact each other just by some simple clicks. According to statista.com, there were 2.46 billion social network users worldwide in 2017. Indeed, the Internet has eradicated the distance between peoples all around the world. What’s more, the Internet saves its users a lot of time and expense involving searching information and communication compared to those of the past.
With the birth of the Internet, a variety of new professions is born along with it. That is e-commerce, web site designing, blogging, vlogging and so on. These types of professions create more jobs and contribute to reduce the unemployment rate. In addition, the Internet is also a digital market in the world. It offers a platform for users to trade and do business quickly and easily.
The Internet is replacing the traditional trading and communicating methods in the past. Traditionally, if you want to purchase something at some certain places, you have to physically go there to get it, or if you want to pay your phone bill which is overdue quite a long time, you must go to the phone company to pay by yourself. Now, those nuisances can be easily swept away just by a simple click. With online shopping, you can check and buy literally everything you want on countless of online shopping sites such as Amazon, Alibaba, Walmart, etc. As for bill paying, many banks, nowadays, offer online bill paying service to their customers; besides, the internet users may pay their bills by using their smartphones that are connected to the internet. Indisputably, the Internet has been utilized to make a revolution of trading methods, so as to communication methods. Before the popularity of the internet, the majority of communication is “offline.” For example, it took days or even weeks for senders to send a letter to the recipients in the past, but now, the task is just a piece of cake by using e-mail. Besides e-mail, video calling through the Internet is the most forceful proof for the importance of the internet. Internet users can face to face talk to others regardless of where they are.
Undoubtedly, the Internet is changing the living standard of its users. It makes the majority of people’s lives more comfortable and convenient. Internet users may search and acquire a huge amount of information and data for academic, recreational, and business purposes in an amazingly short of time compared to the past. How convenient the internet is that its users can literally do anything they like at home, without moving their feet an inch.
In spite of the positive effects of the internet, there are, inevitably, negative ones. First, the Internet can make people addicted to it. In 2014, a study from the University of Hong Kong revealed that about 420 million people around the world are addicted to the internet. The statistical figure indicates the seriousness of internet addiction that is getting worse. The Internet addiction not only negatively affect mental and physical health, but also the behaviors of those who are addicted to it. As a result, the online addicts get trouble in balancing their lives between the digital world and the real one; they cannot focus on their works or studying; they lack the need to socialize with other people; their physical health is getting worse. What’s more, the majority of addicts are youths who are the most important human resources, the key factor to the futuristic development of the world. Side by side with internet addiction, hackers are also a threat to internet users. The bad hackers use their skills of programming and knowledge of the internet to steal, extort, damage, etc. Therefore, the internet world is not a completely safe place as people may think.
Despite several negative effects, the internet, indeed, has brought into our world too many advantages, and benefits. From education to the economy, the internet has played an important role in their developments. It connects peoples around the world, changing the traditional communication and trading method, satisfying our needs, and taking the civilization of humanity to a new level. To conclude, the internet has changed our world.
