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Effect of Internet on Today’s Society

Abstract

Explaining the effect of Internet will have on today’s society is something which could fill books, but it is a fact that because of Internet technology evaluation the meaning of term society will be changed as digital society. This work will emphasis on effect of Internet technology on today's society and discuss effects that are considered to be strong and extreme far reaching.

Internet is powerful medium which makes world as a global village. Internet can be defined as one of the good information and communication medium. It provides wide range of services. With the help of Internet people from all over the world can communicate with each other, share all types of information, and do online shopping from home...

Society in the world will be divided into two categories: one technophile people, who enthusiastic about advance technology and new ways which changes their style of living. Another is technophobe people, who fear the effects of technological development on society and their daily lives. This category of people is rural people who think technology as something abnormal and going against for the public and culture.

The definition of society who will accept Internet technology will change strongly and far reaching. People would these days agree that a society defined mostly by a group of people related to each other through sharing same geographical territory, common language, common culture, common customs and common living standards. Because of Internet technology, societies will look different which consist group of different people like sharing common hobbies, common interested subjects, common social networking sites…

Keywords: Internet, definition of society, technophile, technophobe

1. Introduction

First thing everyone to be sure word societystands for. Society can be described by two different ways:

Society means THE society, which considers all people on earth live under circumstance. This can be described the “highest-level” society, as a dissolve and soften pot of all societies as below as part 2.

Society means A society is a group of people, who share common customs, common culture, common history, common language, common living standards, common territory…

Second thing everyone to be sure word Internet stands for:

Internet can be defined as network of networks. It also described as computer networks, which can be private, public, business, military, government, academic …It serves billions of users across the world. It also provide wide range of services like music, film, newspaper, book, magazines, chat, email, forms, blogs, online shopping, business services, financial services…

Possible inventions in the area of technology could probably fill books. The exceptions are large, when considering for example, the development in the area of Internet technology .In the last 30 years leading from ARPANET to WWW with simple cable network, low bandwidth and high cost to a fiber optical networks, Giga bits bandwidth speed with low cost these days.

2. Technophile versus Technophobe society

A thoughtful and interesting Internet effect will spilt societies in two major categories. There will be Technophile People on one side and a Technophobe People on other side.

a) Technophile People

This category of people will accept latest technology and consider it as natural and part of generous process. Innovations are included for use in routine day to day life. The significant influence of Internet Technology will be accepted. Also as today, the aim of people will be make daily life pleasant and smooth.

b) Technophobe People

This category of people will try to away from advanced and latest technology. This people will think Internet technology as not natural and evil.

No one can surprise that always there was revolt against advance technology. When railways were introduced a majority people thought them to be wicked. It took time until it was steadily accepted as a useful means of transport. Also the negative view of Internet Technology is nothing new: Some people think that Internet spreads western democratic value and western culture. Some think that Internet corrupts people minds and change people moral perspectives and ethical values.

The statement made above that this technophobe category will consist of a melting pot of people from various social backgrounds like ultra conservatives people, rural people and elderly people.

By concluding up these people it looks like reasonable that in develop countries majority of people are technophile while in developing countries majority of people are technophobe.

This category of society considered new technology as bad in beginning then learn to understand them better and how to deal with them and eventually people do not want to miss the technology anymore. The same happened to computers to e-business. Although Internet technology will be accepted widely because the integration of Internet technology into daily life will be much more effortlessly then it is now. Internet technology can gradually be accepted as being normal and non-distressing.

The society taking up Internet Technology changes and letting them go through their lives will change radically.

3. New digital society

Today’s new society can be called as ‘digital society’ because most of information and services are available through internet which purely based on digital technology.

However definition of society given will be changed now a day because factors like territory, culture, and customs will lose importance. Below are some examples of Internet technology will have major effect on the definition of society and how societies are composed.

Virtual reality with help of hand held devices, allowing people to disregard their surroundings. It is not matter whether a person is physically at a different location, so one can attend meeting without having to be their physically. Virtual meeting save time, money, energy and of course protect the environment also.

Because of omni present computing today a technology changed from smart client server computing to a distributed Internet, based on intelligent mobile devices so people are doing business from any place of world at round the clock with less efforts. Share the information very quickly may in a moment. Retrieve information as and when needed without help of any other people.

Nobody will need not to go to shop for shopping; one can order things via Internet. Electronic devices can display the goods, cataloges; make price comparisons and much more. In future possibly even smell or feel things too. Another example is virtual insurance broker, one will not need to talk to a person physically, smart software will able to tell you what you need and how to reduce costs.

Other one is social networking which has exploded in popularity among teenagers, professionals and people living away from home. So everyone can decide their own social groups.

Now school, colleges, offices attending over internet may be possible. Because of no direct social contacts culture and traditions pass down, which can be learned from only through experience, will be lost.

4. Social Effects

The following effects can be drawn:

Many government and private sector collect all detail databases about employees and citizens. But here nobody has known how these data can be share and might be misused too.

But it is impossible to avoid dependency of technology, so must be consider failure probability also.

Most of business contacts can be handled via virtual reality, without the need to travel around the world. So precious time is saved and traffic may also be reduced.

Social effects of innovations must be give attention of technological researcher because sometime new technologies are received by people with force. The try of researcher is to make human life easier and smooth.

Some new technologies were badly accepted by some people of society, such as Internet can be used to make fraud, hacking, as virus spreader. Between offices, states, countries information warfare can be possible. Internet is an ocean of good as well as bad information so it may be trend to wastage of resources and time if people are not aware of how and when Internet is used.

Because of piracy and the doubt about privacy in the digital society, unauthorized copying and processing data raise a question about Internet technology and business: Who should profit from information?

5. Conclusions

Internet is full of good and bad data so to filtering required data is an art of searching methodology, so time can be saved. This kind of training should be part of education and training.

Because of e business activity people can save their time and money in selling or buying goods through Internet. This creates a new market and extended existing market beyond traditional borders.

Internet makes life easy and leisure because of online banking, online gaming, online shopping, and free downloading of music, movies, books, game, software…

Social networking creates a new ways of interconnection and socialization among people. Because of chat and email people can be in touch with friends and relatives all over the world. Lonely people can share their feelings and stories via blog and twitters.

Internet is not a 100% secure medium so hacking; fraud and piracy are major issues which effect on society. So we should make cyber laws more and more effective and also develop new techniques to catch hackers and detect frauds.

6. References

1. Andrew S. Tanenbaum: Computer Network, Prientice Hall
2. Comer, D. E : The Internet book, Prientice Hall
3. E-commerce book by Gujarat Rojgar and Talim Niyamak office
4. Hal R. Varian : Information Goods, Intellectual Property and Related Issues Links compiled Hal R. Varian (http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/resources/infoecon/)
5. http://dictionary.reference.com/
6. http://www.digitalsociety.org
7. http://www.morino.org
8. http://www.zurich.ibm.com
9. Whiteman, M.E. and Mattford ,Principles of information society, Thomson

*************************************************** 

Ms. Sheetal R. Shah
Assist. Professor (COMPUTER)
Government Science College, Valod
E-MAIL : SHEETALSHAH12@YAHOO.CO.IN
(M) 9427022450

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