The influence of the Internet has caused a
change in the way we shop, communicate, and learn.
We now understand the importance of the many forms of communication that have been expanded into a global form by the Internet:One-to-one (e-mail is the fastest growing form of one to one communication 7.3 billion US e-mails per day). One-to-many (Internet newsgroups and personal Web sites include over a billion exchanges per day).Many-to-many (Internet chat, Usenet exchanges and a wide variety of
exchanges on the Internet are now usual for 50 million people every
day).It seems strange to imagine that it was only five years ago that
there was any doubt that ‘the new media will enfranchise the individual
with more one-to-one communication which will be easy by personal
‘phones, E-mail and video conferencing. Or that
‘person-to-person-to-machine/database communication will be more
important, electronically managed and more global.This paper, taking relevant experience from round the world (and
particularly the USA, where experience is much greater), is written from
a UK perspective. Here we see the explosion of access evident in
northern Europe and the USA two years ago. At the beginning of 1999, NOP
research suggested 10 million people had become regular users of the
Internet. Current projections are that, as the new millennium opens this
number will have grown to 17 million.Just two years ago the Netcraft survey counted 1 million Web
sites, by April 1999 it was 5 million Web sites. It is driving a
knowledge explosion. More knowledge has been accumulated by the Internet
in the last five years than in the previous 50 years.
Prior to the Internet, everyday tasks such
as banking, paying bills, and shopping took time outside the home. With the Internet, online banking allows people to
keep their personal finances on track twenty-four hours a day. While this is nothing new, banks did offer phone
services to do the same functions, the fact that online banking can now be combined with
online bill paying, late payments are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Even online shopping can save time and energy. Shopping for the latest trends in clothes? Hop on line and pick outfits from your favorite
stores. No more going to the mall, finding a
parking space, then not being able to find your size.
Online shopping gives more options and real-time inventory of items. A mall store may have limited space to display all
the trends, but an online store is only limited by the size of their imagination. Online shopping has even progressed into the
supermarket realm. Sit at home on a Thursday
evening and order food for your Saturday backyard bar-ba-que for delivery on Saturday
morning. No more pushing a cart around a big
box store, and lugging heavy plastic bags to you car.
Door to door delivery of groceries means you never have to go to the store again.
The Internet has also closed the gap for
many families separated by the miles. While
the US Postal Service has progressed since the days of the Pony Express, the Internet has
made stamps and phone calls nearly obsolete. During
World War II, letters to and from troops were censored and shrunk to nearly microfiche
size. With all the processing required,
letters often took weeks or months to arrive. Today,
a quick email takes seconds to convey feelings of fear and joy to love ones around the
world. As the Internet becomes utilized more
for emails, emails themselves have become more sophisticated. Pictures and short movies now zip around the world
at lightning speed. Want to show the newest
member of the family to Grandma in Florida? Take
some video and attach it to an email. For
less then the cost of a plane ticket, she can count all the fingers and toes herself.
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.
Internet websites offering quick money, instant weight loss, and Nostradomises
predictions sit side be side websites providing legitimate health information, historic
facts, and online stock trading.
The Internet has also helped increase the
entire computer hardware industry. To
compete in the latest online gaming, the fastest computers are often needed. The hardware industry constantly pushes bigger,
faster, and more expensive equipment, even to people that already own a computer. The hardware industry may push speed of hardware
as a reason to upgrade, but the average Internet user will always be limited by the speed
of their Internet connection. Dial-up
Internet access is the same speed whether using a four year old slow computer, and the
latest model from the Dell’s and Gateway’s of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment