Pro's & Con's of the Internet becoming more a part of our Daily lives.

OmegaFenix

OmegaFenix

The Legendary Troll Hunter
Pro's & Con's of the Technology becoming more a part of our Daily lives.

I am doing research for a novel and would like to hear the thought s of both supporters and nay sayers of the following topic.

As technology continues to advance and our lives become more and move interwoven with it the internet is playing a larger role in our lives than ever before. Facebook, MySpace, Blogspot, YouTube even forums like MyBroadband are bring people together in completely new ways. Many believe we are approaching a singularity where technology, and in this particular case web technology, will become integral to our daily lives.

We regularly hear about people either taking legal action again sites like Facebook or Google for breach of Privacy or sporting the dangers of the net, gaming, social networking. We notice little things like Google ads reflecting topics we search and our lives continue to be "invaded" by the interconnectivity that the world wide web offers; from teens sending provocative pictures over mxit, family feuds spilling onto facebook or bullying becoming internet sensations thanks to YouTube.

Being a child of the Tech-Generation and a big geek myself I am bias on the subject, as many are, being able to only see the good of this ever growing and evolving cyber-culture and condemning those who fall victim to it as stupid or ignorant. I am looking for the opinions of people who are on the other side of the fence. Not just those who preach doom & gloom in the form of a technology created apocalypse but those who consider them self educated, understanding the benefits of the web while still being able to criticize the dangers of it.

All Opinions Welcome.
 
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Major Con, When your useless country hosts a massive event like..the soccer world cup be prepaired to cry and sit and anguish for hours on end, as apparently the tourists are more important than the people that pay for their FUCKINg internet usage.

Will write something more constructive tonight...Just needed to vent.
 
Wow, I could go on about this topic for pages and pages. Studied topics similar to this just recently at university and, well, needless to say, the internet is as bad as it is good.

It's good, on the one hand, because it allows communication ans information to broaden over all kinds of geographical and cultural boundaries. Facebook helps reunite old friends, forums allow like-minded individuals to gather and talk about their hobbies and the same can be said for Youtube. It does allow us to gain certain enjoyments out of life. It also helps us to get more information about the world for FREE, instead of having to pay R100 upwards for a whole book about something.

Then again, the internet has made people impatient, and with all the access to information one has, one has to question how reliable, valid and how genuine the information is. There is a lot of bulls*** out there on the net written by people who think they know everything. And people just don't read any more. One has to ask: what would I be doing if I did not have access to the internet? The answer would more than likely be something far more constructive. You also has to ask how genuine the friendships are that are formed over the net when compared to meeting people in 'the real world'. It's an attention seeking place where people may come if they find their immediate reality too intimidating. Corporations like Google and Microsoft take advantage of you by selling your private information to advertisers so that they can make a buck off you. Surveillance is a big problem on the internet; how we are able to keep track of one another and how the whole concept of what is private and what is not has become blurred. I think it's all very psychological, with people forming different identities on the internet while being completely different people outside of the internet.

Most importantly, the internet itself is biased with most users being white, middle-aged, particularly well-off men living comfortably in their little first-world countries. There is NOT a lot of varied information as most is coming from the keyboards of these people. In a sense, the internet is an extension of Westernisation, with less-developed countries contributing very little to the wealth available on the net. I suppose you have to wonder if this is good or bad... Personally, I'm not all for a single unified culture created by the internet; I'm all for people holding onto their individual cultures. It makes life more interesting.

Anyway, enough philosophical talk for me. That's just a few sentences of what I studied :)
 
powder you and me will talk more about this. I can see ur going to be a varied fountain of info as far as my novel is concerned. Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Hmmm...the Internet...interesting subject!

Obviously the internet is good and bad, and excuse the bias, but you have to have some smarts about you, but you can be smart and be incredibly dumb. I suppose the internet is a bit like real life, but magnified 1000x or more, due to the fact that everyone is anonymous until we reveal our information! That's the only real thing that most issues boil down to when people thing of the negative things. Privacy lawsuits, etc just boil down to how much we reveal online and how careful we are when using it. Trust is one of the other key factors here, as once again, you don't know someone but you trust them to actually have that product you bid for on eBay to deliver. When said trust is broken, people get really upset, as they feel cheated somehow.

So basically, privacy and trust. We trust in websites to not give out our info, and they promise to do so. Just some ideas, and I hope they help.
 
OmegaFenix22 said:
powder you and me will talk more about this. I can see ur going to be a varied fountain of info as far as my novel is concerned. Thanks for your thoughts.
Click to expand...

No problem :) Wow, I never thought that the course on methodology I took would actually be useful, but hey! Good luck with teh novel.
 
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