The Internet can be the most amazing place with just a click of a button, but just behind those
adorable puppy photos that always seem to make your day, could be something so fabricated or
injurious. There are billions of different people all around the world who go on the internet daily, most
of which hop right on to social media sites like Facebook or Instagram, but the one similarity everyone
on social media has is that they have the power to produce digital pollution. In simple terms, this type of
pollution is a form of technological words, pictures, or messages. If you have ever been on social media,
you have certainly either seen or posted digital pollution with or without even realizing. Digital pollution
can have numerous beneficial and dismissive effects on a countless number of corporations and the
general public.
The Idea of starting and creating a business is something so thrilling, but most would be surprised
to learn how easy it is to destroy one through digital pollution. Take Amazon for example, everyone in
the world knows that it is the most wide-reaching and triumphant running company in the world. Now
imagine that you were the person who created this multi-billion-dollar company, and one day someone
posts something totally arbitrarily and erroneous on Facebook saying that you force your employees to
do things for you. It is crazy, but hat one post can demolish your entire business, and this is exactly how
digital pollution ruins corporations in the real world. Jonathin Gilvery and his story Sifting through Digital
Pollution for the Facts argues that “Businesses can see their reputations ruined by false information.”
When you own a business, your company's reputation is everything because as soon as you lose it, you
can go from a multi-million-dollar company to a broken-dollar company in a matter of days. Likewise,
some may argue that digital pollution in the form as false pictures can be used as an enjoyment like
Janice Lowen and her story Creating Viral Fake-Outs, “It is often something that can be enjoyed to
many.” Moreover, this might be true, but these pictures are still fake, and it only takes one person to
turn false pictures into false information. To add on, not only can corporations be ruined by their
reputation, but they can also be ruined by false information about a person in charge or in head of the
company. In Jonathon Gilvarys article, “When RIP Cher began trending...many of her fans reacted with
shock and disbelief.” This information was about a person's death, but next time it could be about how
someone went against the law, and no one would like to buy products from a person which did illegal.
Obviously if any of this ever happened to any company it would ruin them, which in the end shows
exactly how easy it is for digital pollution to have a dismissive effect on corporations. Though again,
businesses are not the only thing that is influenced by digital pollution.
An email is an electronic mailbox which everyone in the world has. Whether you use it for school
or business is not the matter, but that of the messages people get daily, called spam. No, not the food
that comes in a can, and not too just send a message respectively to the point when it gets annoying,
but a digital message like an ad. Most of the general public hate spam like they hate vegetables, but for
some spam and other digital pollution can be beneficial. Ben Girard and his article What is Spam argues,
“Once an email had been created, it can be sent to as many email addresses as the sender wants with a
click of a button.” This allows people to be able to get their word out a lot faster and so that others can
join to do what the ad says. Likewise, some would argue that you get more negative spams than positive
one like Ben Girard and his article, “the odds of getting a positive response from a spam email may not
be particularly good,” and that may be true but there are many solutions to this like only clicking on the
less suspicious ones or by updating your privacy settings. Moreover, spam is not the only positive digital
pollution. Going back to Janice Lowens article Creating Viral Fake-Outs, “With the right software the
right amount of knowledge a person can create almost any kind of picture they want.” This shows that
people can have a fun time creating fun and or positive pictures. In the end, digital pollution can have a
beneficial effect on the general public.
It is now evident that digital pollution can be beneficial and detrimental, but in short, digital
pollution whether in the form of pictures, information, or spam and cause negative and positive effects
to businesses and the general public. Digital pollution no matter what form it is, will never be totally
disintegrated, so it is now up to you to decide if you are either with or against digital pollution.