IMPACT OF INTERNET

Impact of the Internet on Different Aspects of America

Impact of the Internet on Different Aspects of America

Social Activities and Cultural Norms

Introduction

Internet seriously affects our social lives and cultural norms. In the early days of the Internet, speculation was rampant. The Internet quickly attracted scholarly interest, but good representative data about the uses of the Internet and their social consequences were scarce.

Social Networking

There are many websites on the Internet that now allow people of all ages to create their own profiles. It is done in order to meet other people who may or may not live near them. MySpace, one of the most popular social networking websites, currently has 76 million users, and that number continues to grow every day by the thousands. Facebook, a popular social networking site among college students, averages 250 million hits every day. The media has been discussing the dangers of social networking sites more frequently in the recent months; this has led to many people wanting to ban social networking sites (Hillstrom, 2005). Others would like the teens that use these sites in high numbers to think about what they are posting, and what consequences they may face in the future. Many people also believe that social networking sites are wonderful because they allow organizations to communicate with large groups of people.

Social Interaction

There are strong claims that interaction via the Internet is too impersonal and isolating to constitute real social interaction. The students who use the Internet too frequently have lower academic performance and they feel lonely. People can present and get trapped up in misleading and fake identities. These situations lead to many negative uses and consequences such as smoking, pornography, hate groups, and sexist language. However, other theory and research emphasize that online interaction is highly social. The Internet complements ...