The Impact of the Internet on Me

A Reaction to the Study Conducted by the PEW/Internet and American Life Project Entitled “The Internet and Daily Life”

I just got a laptop recently. After years of wishing and dreaming, now I have one. First, I want a laptop because it will serve as my assistant to my work and my studies. With all the paper works and necessary recordings I have to make, there must be a device like the personal computer with me – 24 hours a day. Then I had this laptop. Is it an Internet or Wi-Fi ready? Yes, and then I realized that my satisfaction of owning this gadget doesn’t stop there. Next I found out I need the access to the Internet. At work, I could pick a UTP cable in one corner of the computer laboratory to be able to go online. That way, I thought I could be able to get enough of my needs with respect to those tasks this laptop can serve. It was still my dissatisfaction. Computer laboratories at the school where I teach at are of course for students’ use and I, as a teacher cannot use those rooms all the time. Inconvenience on my part because I have to check first whether one of those rooms are available for “just-asking-a-favor” like me. There is scarcity of that kind of resources at work but it is not the topic of this essay. Easy but cheap long-distance communications or prompt ad hoc information gathering provide an increasing need to make this laptop serve its full potential. Away from work, I can go to some malls, where wireless Internet access is available. The problem with that is the spending I get because I have to pick a restaurant that provides the access to its customers. Added to that hassle is the amount of idle time spent on travel and traffic. True enough, I have this laptop but not happy with it. So I applied for broadband internet service at home. As for now, I can say that there is a great impact of the Internet in my daily life.

According to the PEW Internet and American Life Project, many Americans use the Internet in everyday activities. Their findings show that majority or 92 percent of Internet users in America say it is a good place to find everyday information. Others or 85 percent of them say the Internet is the good way to communicate or interact with others. Next to it is 75 percent of Americans who find Internet as a good place to conduct everyday transactions and the rest or 69 percent of them say it is a good way to find entertainment in everyday life.

The succeeding sections would elaborate the impact of the Internet in my daily life. Categories are presented in an order of having the greatest impact value on me, down to the line which has the least. There is one item I added because I knew for myself that I actually want a laptop for earning purposes. What I mean here is I can use my laptop to handle some extra jobs.

I Use the Internet Primarily Because I Need to Communicate

I am not an American but if they would ask me which among these four categories (i.e. information seeking, communications, transactions, and entertainment) play the greatest impact on me, it would be communications rather than information seeking which came top on American survey. Economical, convenience, efficiency, and reliability are the advantages I see on daily Internet communications. I see that this type of communication could allow me to experience these advantages in terms of posting announcements, conducting inquiries, providing updates, and joining discussions. Hence, I use e-mail, chat services, web logs, and forum services to reach my colleagues, students, friends, classmates and even other people I have never met in person before.

The economic side of it is obvious because my Internet service providers (ISP) allow unlimited access time for some fixed amount on a monthly basis. These services, particularly e-mail are an efficient and very reliable form of communication because its content can be viewed repeatedly. I think it is equally reliable and credible, too as the old-time letter/document in paper (tangible) form especially on serious issues that may require irrevocable expressions. That’s why I am so serious and very careful in conversing with anyone over the Internet. I could even keep some back up copies and print them as well so that no one would deny what they have said to me. Likewise, I could never deny everything I have said though this it is just electronically conversed. Along with e-mail service is the possibility of getting documents via file transfer as attachments to an e-mail message. I can now minimize spending money on courier service because of the Internet.

The web is of course very efficient because my message can go through its recipient in matter of seconds. Chat service or conferencing is the best way to get efficient Internet communication and the best thing about it is I can connect to people to anywhere they are. Neither seas nor mountains would deprive two parties to communicate each other as efficient as pressing the send button and getting reply in seconds’ interval – that is for instant messaging service. A higher level of satisfaction would be such that turning the microphone, speaker and the web camera on so that both ends would hear and see each other online. Communication over long distances would be as fast as talking to one another in person, face to face.

The convenience I got in this form of communication occurs in several ways. With my experience, broadcasting by means of web log, web sites and user group forums via Internet is very ideal to post or receive announcements and information updates. Before Internet times, broadcasting seldom happened among small group of people because one has had to find radio stations or bulletin boards to announce upcoming events. The assurance of reaching intended recipients that time was very minimal because not all people listen to a single AM or FM broadcasts. Also, not all people listen to them at the same range of time. So, to increase the possibility of sending the same information during that time, one has had to hop from one radio station to another or post on many bulletin boards (electricity poles in worse scenarios) but communication was less effective though. Nowadays, it would be a lot different. If I would be a president of an organization, I would provide a website for that one and at the same time I would make my blog site accessible to every members of my organization. I can have the comfort of writing those matters over the Internet without the hard time of traveling to those radio stations, and public places where bulletin boards are available. Most of all, I would not be a contributor to dirty environment by leaving all those electricity poles alone! That way, it would be easy to manage my group. As a teacher, I make use of user group so that my announcements and other communications would be conducted online. Another advantage in terms of convenience provided by the Internet is the idea that I can participate to threading and some discussions or I can inquire on something to some companies, agencies and organizations without the hassle of asking for an appointment with somebody. And more importantly, the Internet helps eliminate those waiting hours that I can possibly take while on queue if I only want to ask about what requirements I need to submit for enrollment, or ask for a form for civil service exam application, or inquire about how much I have contributed to my social security. On small issues, I don’t need to physically attend to various seminars to learn about something because I find it easy to join some groups who share ideas of the same interests. For example, I joined a group of vegetarian people, raise my concern, get their opinions and continuously interact with them. The relief I can get on various communications while just sitting in this corner of my home and being online would be endless as I appreciate what this big e has to offer.

Internet Information Searches in General is Advantageous but I Need to be Very Careful about Those Pieces that I Get

It is great how search engines list down related topics from around the world after I key in something on that portion of text box and click the search button. I can search on anything that comes to my mind from the broadest sense to the most specific subject. The list that I get from the web on a particular topic would be so many. And information floods to my PC so easily. One time when my schedule was not so tight, I found out (after more than 3 decades) that my first name is a name of a saint and also there’s a city in France that bears the name that I bear. Where else in the world would I go to find information that I need promptly? Of course, the answer would be the Internet. Online encyclopedias, magazines, news publications, journals, government/company/school web sites are among those sources that can give me the most reliable information plus there are sites where multimedia format of items (videos, sounds and pictures) are available. Many of the information are free of charge but most of them are downloadable with corresponding payments. Flooding of information surely happens because a lot of individuals or groups are so generous to provide these online. This issue I want to discuss elsewhere, probably with another essay one time. I want to give some sort of warning on getting information from free encyclopedias and on some forms of organizations. I advise that one must read or think about the contents carefully because these are written by many sorts of users of the Internet who tries to contribute. In these cases, the reader must be aware that some entries may not have valid basis or sources.

I must admit Internet search engines help a lot but I am actually not happy with it. In a positive way to look at it, authors in general say the just a single substance on concepts or ideas of one matter, yet others present the same topic in a different manner. For example, when I need the topic about “phased approach to business process reengineering” different sources give various lights. And when I search for the topic “business process reengineering”, I need to realize that this topic is also the same as “business process restructure”. Surprisingly, some writers call it “business reorganization”. In this case, I need not complain because even in the old times of pen and print, books of different authors vary in presentation and usage of terms. I think that every researcher must acquire a certain level of intelligence to weigh down all the information he/she can get over the Internet. As a teacher, I don’t easily rely on materials downloaded from the Internet but to give a level of trust on some authors, I could check if such material goes with authentic book publications. As I get tons of information in my daily searches, I end up so confused and tired. Many times I can open a file but in the end it does not contain the information that I want. Sometimes, the topic that I am searching for seemed to be too specific that I need to find another key term in broader idea.

Information is easily gathered over the Internet and this incredible machine where I compose this essay, connected to another incredible machines elsewhere in the globe would simply give me all that I have asked. Compared to my days when in high school, I remember I had to travel across town just to find a household who owns a set of encyclopedia. In there I can conduct my research on my science subject. Information sources were very limited that time even when I was in college because the Internet was not here then. Students/learners today are so lucky that even if they don’t have any PC at home, Internet cafes exist in many places and they can go online anytime. Some Internet cafes are open 24 hours a day. There’s another context I can see in a negative view with students who utilize the web to search on something but again, I better discuss it on another essay. The idea I want to emphasize here however, is that large possibility of all information can be provided by the Internet including obscene and malicious items. I think that one must possess a level of maturity, not in terms of age but in terms of wisdom or responsibility. After all, as I perceive it, e-democracy means democracy of every citizen (of the world) to possess freedom of expressions over the web, with Internet as the main tool. A matured and responsible citizen who may receive unwholesome items from this media may neither be rattled, nor lost, nor corrupted yet find the Internet a better tool to carry on most of his/her daily activities.

The impact of the Internet on me, when used as a tool to search information would be this way: there’s a need for me to achieve certain level of intelligence so that I can just read the information but later accept it as true only if agrees to my personal experience (not other’s opinion) or proven facts/universal principles. I am neither affected, nor dismayed, nor even cheerful to know those Internet scandals and various crimes exist over the web simply because I believe they wouldn’t succeed if no one would patronize them nor hail their activities.

Extra Jobs would be the Third Reason Why I Need the Internet Day After Day

I’ve got a full time job in teaching and I have part-time job in other school. When time permits, I would add another job by going back to writing online which I have started before. I can’t write online nowadays because graduate school demands a great amount of time, mental and physical resources of me. On between breaks, I might as well write again most especially because I need a payoff over laptop usage and Internet consumption. Sooner or later I plan to go back to my web logs, organize it well, build a better network, and earn from blogging. Then, if those plans were done and if I become adopted to unfamiliar sets of activities in my daily life, I would either study a couple of software because I want to design, create or maintain web sites of some businesses or I would find a better alternative, perhaps get jobs online, transact over the web, and do jobs remotely.

Finding Entertainment and Transacting Everyday Affairs Online Are the Least Reasons Why I Need the Internet

It could be true that many times I go online to read for pleasure or to listen to several types of music but I have never experienced conducting transactions over the Internet. These factors, the entertainment side and the commonplace transactions side of the Internet indeed remain insignificant to me, because I am not that type of person who uses computers just to play games nor who pay bills online. I don’t enjoy virtual games, but I admire programmers behind these types of software. I thought it was good to transact so got the access to my bank account (online); and thought also that I would be able to pay my electricity bills. But after a while it was not an effective tool for me because it was such a hassle to remember passwords. Imagine keeping different account names and passwords for companies like my bank and my electricity provider. One time I forgot my log on information so I tried logging on several times until I was blocked from using my bank account online. What a mess!

On the other hand, there are things I appreciate with the entertainment side. These are listening to music, reading, or pursuing my hobby. I had signed up to web sites who allow keeping play lists and providing songs of various artists. Lately, too I found out that it is a good hobby to keep some web logs so I added blogging to my hobby list. Blogging for me was a combination of executing my hobby and reading for pleasure. Many times I go reading from one weblog to another. It doesn’t end there. That was because I even got a social e-network with blogging.

On conducting commonplace transactions over the web, I see that it has that less impact not only on me but on my country in broader sense. Commercial establishments here are not yet ready to adapt that kind of marketing strategy. How much more with those government agencies here?

Conclusion

Even though the Internet is a great advantage to me in terms of communications technology, it also has certain disadvantages that I would like to avoid. These are lack of face-to-face socialization, information overload, and password fatigue. It is obvious that communications via Internet doesn’t provide personal touch to conversation. There’s nothing else than talking to friends and family members in person that he may hold my hand if he wants to while saying “you are safe here”, for example. One more thing, I can’t rely to searching information via web because often times I got information overload. Lots of files to read, lots of files to delete. Finally, I would like to avoid the so-called password fatigue. Password fatigue refers to a syndrome where I need to remember an excessive number of passwords as part of my daily living.

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The Impact of the Internet on Me

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