Nelson Avery
Jacob Stazewski
September 18, 2003
The introduction of the Internet has had a tremendous effect on society. It has
opened communication and information access between people unlike anything the world
has seen before. Unfortunately, this technological advancement has come with its share
of drawbacks as well.
The most beneficial aspect of the World Wide Web is the access it gives to
information. The amount of data one can find is virtually endless in depth and scope. It
has become an important resource to the average student. “Sparknotes.com,”1 a website
with access to literary texts, reviews, and summaries, is widely used amongst students.
Other sites, like “The New York Times: On the Web”2 bring international news directly
to the people as soon as it breaks. There’s no longer any need to wait for the morning
paper, or to try to catch a story on the news. The Internet has replaced encyclopedias and
libraries as the mainstream method of collecting information.
Society has also been revolutionized through Internet chat rooms, where people
with common interests can meet from across the globe. Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles’
football, for example, can get together and chat about their favorite teams with people
they’ve never met on “Official Website of the Philadelphia Eagles.”3 Similarly, long
distance phone charges can now be avoided by using America Online’s Instant
Messenger.4 Like a telephone, this service provides direct communication, but
dissimilarly, it also allows you to carry on a number of conversations at one time.
The Web also has a number of negative impacts on society. For one, it allows
access to inappropriate or perhaps hazardous material for anyone. Information about
bomb-making or creating computer viruses is available on the Net. In the wrong hands,
such information could be damaging or deadly. An example of inappropriate material
might be “Playboy.com,”5 which features nudity. While this is a matter of ethics, most
parents would object to such material being within reach of their children, and so society
has developed “CyberPatrol”6 programs.
The Internet also gives people the ability to steal information. Credit card and
social security numbers can be uncovered by computer hackers, and used against the
victims. Copyright violations are a more common form of stealing information. The
Internet makes plagiarism more tempting to students writing difficult reports. Another
recent example of copyright violations as an impact on society would be the lawsuits
filed against users of sites like “Kazaa”7 and “Napster”8. The music industry has filed
numerous claims that their copyrighted material is being stolen through such sites, by
downloading it and burning it onto a CD. Children as young as 12 years old have been
charged. This conflict has and will yet have a huge impact on society.
The Internet is obviously the one of the most beneficial and revolutionary
developments in recent history. It has had many positive impacts on society, but is not
without its flaws.
1
http://www.sparknotes.com.
http://www.nytimes.com.
3
http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/default2.jsp.
4
http://www.aol.com.
5
http://www.playboy.com.
6
http://www.cyberpatrol.com/.
7
http://www.kazaa.com/us/index.htm.
8
http://www.mynapster.com.
2