Topic: Does the Internet have a Positive Influence in our Society TodayResearch Question: The Internet has a Positive Influence in our Society Today

A second advantage of using Internet is communication. With the help of       Internet, communication has also become cheaper, quicker, and more efficient. We can now communicate with our relatives around the world by simply chatting or sending them an email and we can get response from them without any delay. The internet has also opened up face to face direct communication from different parts of the world, thanks to the helps of video conferencing. Internet has helped to bridge the cultural gap by helping people from different cultures to communicate with one another, and allow for the exchange of views and ideas, thus increasing awareness and reducing prejudice. On the contrary, there are still some parents out there that are fear of Internet because they are possibilities that their kid are chatting with a harmful person. As a result, there have been many cases where children have been convinced to meet people they have talked with online.  In fact, “stories seem to come out every week:  a child or teenager lured into something foolish, dangerous, or even deadly on line” (Weise 2004).

The last but certainly not the least advantage is business. The Internet has become a large market for companies; some of the biggest companies today have grown by taking advantage of the efficient nature of low-cost advertising and commerce through the Internet; also known as e-commerce(Trading Onilne,2000). The Internet has also consequently revolutionized shopping, for example; a person can order a CD online and receive it in the mail within a couple of days, or download it directly in some cases(Trading Online,2000). Examples of marketing include online communities such as Myspace, Friendster, and others which thousands of Internet users join to promote themselves and make friends online. When they promote themselves they will also promote their interests and hobbies, which online marketing companies can use as information as to what those users will buy online, and advertise their own company’s products to those users. I think that this is certainly the best way of doing business as a few companies had collected millions of dollars just by using the Internet for selling products. However, sometimes while doing online businesses, situation like not receiving the goods after we have pay or the company that we are doing business with is not exist. We call this business fraud. There are a lot of people out there who is doing fraud business; hence we should always have all the information that we need before dealing with them.

In conclusion, I can say that Internet gives us a lot of benefits especially in education, communication, and business. The Internet certainly gives a positive influence to our society. Talking about the negative influence, there are actually many things that we can do to get rid off the negative influence such as installing available software programs with which a user can choose to block offensive web sites on individual computers or networks, enacting laws making distribution of certain material, such as child pornography illegal, and parents must actively guide and guard their children when they online.

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References

Mattews, Jimmy. (1998)  ‘Advantages of Information Technology’  21st July 2006

‘Author Unknown’   20th July 2006

‘Author Unknown’ (2000) Trading Online  20 July 2006

Student Central ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet’             20 July 2006