The influence of the Internet has caused a change in the way we communicate, learn and shop.
The Internet is probably most famous for the ability to spread information, fact or fiction. We were once limited to news editors of a local paper, then to national cable news. Now anyone can search the globe, visit local papers in foreign countries, and see the views of all sides. This ease of information has also brought with it a large amount of hoaxes, money schemes, and fallacies.
There is no question that easy access to the Internet, like the introduction of mail service and the invention of the telephone, has changed the nature of people’s connection to others in their social world. Mail made possible connections among people without physical proximity, and the telephone facilitated communication among distant people, making rapid connections possible across long distances.
But has this communication revolution changed the pure nature of interpersonal and group processes?
On the one hand, since the primary use of the Internet is communication, some people might speculate that the Internet will have positive social consequences in people’s everyday lives because it increases the frequency and quality of interpersonal communications among people. People with easy access to others would feel better connected and more strongly supported by others, leading to happiness and engagement in families, organizations, communities, and society more generally.
But, on the other hand, the ease of electronic communication may lead to weaker social ties, because people have less reason to leave their homes and actually interact face to face with other people. The Internet allows people to more easily work from their home, to form and sustain friendships and even romantic attachments from their home, to bank from their home, to vote and engage in political and social issue based discussions with others (from home).
In this variety of ways, Internet communications can potentially displace face-to-face communications. I think this point is important because psychologists in many researches have described and proved such face to face and telephone connections as being of higher quality, when viewed in terms of their contribution to satisfaction and well-being.
Reading a series of longitudinal and experimental studies (e.x. McKenna, Green, and Gleason), who test a theory of relationship formation on the Internet, these researchers directly address the argument that the psychological quality of Internet social interaction is lower than is the psychological quality of traditional face-to-face interaction.
Consider my own use. I’ve received several e-mail messages in the past hour. My boyfriend confirms the dinner for tonight. Even though it is weekend, my colleagues send me questions about the pending exam expects a quick answer. So does some graduate student from Europe, that I recently met on “MySpace” with an urgent request for a letter of recommendation. My friend Ksenija sends me an IM to tell me the latest news about her new love. And so on and so on…
I assume that I am also living a virtual life, and what’s the most interesting of all, all of my friends online, are also my friends in real life. And if they weren’t that in the past, I somehow managed to bring my cyber friends into my real life, so I could here in my real life enable real communication, real face-to-face “talks”, real exchange of emotions, feelings of happiness, satisfaction and well-being. I’d say for me, the Internet is a great new way for doing old things.
So, what else conclusion can I bring except the one that Internet life cannot stand on itself without real-life communication. It is simple: If we understand the qualities of face-to-face communication that influence the impact of such communication on people and their social interaction, we would be able to predict the probable influence of any new communication technology. However, researchers show that people sooner or later convert their cyber contacts into more traditional face-to-face, the same as I do. People use the Internet, in other words to help them achieve their real-life goals. And rather than technology’s changing people’s social and psychological reality, in other words, people change their use of technology to facilitate their creation of a desired social reality.
Internet users should closely examine their behavior, to ensure that excessive time online will not negatively impact their personal well-being. We shouldn’t throw our computers out the window, but neither should we charge on blindly into complete dependence on the Internet. As with many things in life, it seems that moderation and balance are key to maximizing the Internet’s positive effect.
By: Martina Nikolovska
Posts Tagged ‘Internet Mail’
Internet: Communication Through Technology Including Video and Audio
November 1st, 2009
Who hasn’t heard about the internet? No one! Unless, of course, you have been living in a cave for the past decade! The internet is the crowning achievement of the Information Age (which is what we call this age we live in). It has completely revolutionized how we communicate and how we live.
But what exactly is this thing we call the internet? In a nutshell, the internet is the interconnection of computers around the world. It allows users of these computers to communicate in a variety of ways: through email, streaming conferencing, website information, file sharing, and others.
For you to connect to the internet, you will need a computer and a connection to an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Your ISP will provide you with a connection and the means to connect to the internet.
The internet started out as a project of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense), which was commissioned by the Pentagon to look into the uses of networking for military purposes in 1960. From there, the internet was steadily developed to benefit the whole populace.
In the beginning, the internet could only chug along at a low data transfer rate. Today, ISPs offer speeds from 56 kilobytes per second to 10 megabytes per second or more! This allows people to transfer more data which facilitates better communication.
The internet impacts so much of our daily lives that it has become indispensable to so many people and businesses.
Uses of the Internet
1. E-mail – Gone are the days when people had to wait weeks or even months to receive postal mail! With the internet, an email can be sent and reach its destination instantaneously! E-mails have made the world a smaller place, allowing people separated by great distances to correspond.
2. Instant Messaging, Chat Rooms – Services such as AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Skype allow people to send messages instantaneously, much like a phone conversation, but using written messages. There are also “virtual rooms” on the internet facilitated by services developed for this reason. These “rooms” allow many users to chat using written messages.
3. Webpages – Webpages are like virtual homes on the internet. They allow people to post documents on the internet that are easy to browse through and navigate. As time haspassed by, webpages have gained more functionality. Today you can download files, submit files and comments, and do all your shopping online.
Webpages serve many functions: some promote businesses, some are purely informational, and some become money making vehicles. The internet spawned what we now call e-commerce. This involves purchasing over the internet. You can even use online payment methods such as PayPal, Paydot and other methods.
4. Streaming Services and File Sharing – The internet also allows file sharing. This allows you to share files with other users. These files may be large or small. Streaming services allow you to receive data such as radio feeds, or even video feeds over the internet.
A Brave New World
In the past, the internet was limited to large institutions. Now residential internet has become more affordable. Today’s technology even allows mobile internet! You could surf the internet from a mobile device such as a cell phone, or you could surf from your laptop in areas that offer Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity). The internet makes instant communication with the rest of the world possible. In the next few years we will see much more.
By: David Arnold Livingston