Advantages:
1)
One advantage to the internet is the spread of
information and the speed in which one can receive it. The number of things
that can be found on the internet is almost unlimited but the benefit to the
speed that the internet is unrivaled in is that say there is an outbreak of
some kind or even a natural disaster. With the internet this information is
right at your fingertips and solutions to whatever problems may come from them.
2)
Another advantage would be social networking.
With social networking a very shy or timid person now has a voice to the
masses. Everyone can think of that one person from high school that never
really talked or shied away from human interaction, but this person now has a
way to go about expressing themselves whether it be with a simple facebook
status or even creating a blog and emptying all their thoughts and ideas into
it.
3)
Lastly I would like to bring up how much easier
and cheaper it is to shop online. I am a huge user of eBay and use stores like
Best Buy to go browse items I want to then go home and look for online. For
example I was looking to buy new speakers for my room and went to Best Buy. Found
a pair I liked and went home and searched them on eBay and found them for half
the price with free shipping and a year warrantee. Even this laptop that I am
not using to write all of this was purchased of eBay for only a fraction of
what it cost in stores. Online shopping can give those who may be handicapped
or even just plain old lazy a way to shop for the things they need and have
them shipped right to their door involving little to no effort.
Disadvantages:
1)
I am going to play devil’s advocate and make a
counter argument for all of the advantages. For one the spread of information
what can be harmful here is the spread of false information. There are a lot of
websites out there which are full of nonfactual information. One perfect
example is how comfortable people are with Wikipedia when anyone can go on Wikipedia
and change information. I had a history teacher go on and change dates to make
a point not to study of Wikipedia. It takes one persons misinterpretation of
something to spread to the masses as mentioned by Cornell University when they
stated this about a false Martin Luther King Jr. quote that circulated the
internet:” Notice that the quotation marks start after the first sentence.
However, someone copied and pasted the entire post and for some reason removed
the quotations. As a result, the first sentence became part of the MLK Jr.’s
quote. Eventually, the fake quote was re-tweeted by Penn Jillette of Penn and
Teller to his 1.6 million followers on Facebook. As a result, the quote went
viral on Twitter.” The rest of that article can be found here: http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2011/11/10/the-internet-and-the-spread-of-false-information/
2)
With social networking we can see the lack of
human interaction. While yes one person can express their self in ways they
normally wouldn’t, it also gives them a place to hide behind. Some people don’t
find the need to go out and interact in the real world because they are too
consumed by their social networking lives or even such MMO (Mass Multiplayer
Online) games like World of Warcraft. I remember years back when I saw on a
news article that a couple was married over World of Warcraft. I just asked
myself what this world is coming to. So many people can hide behind their
computer screens now. Some even take to attacking others which I refer to as “keyboard
warriors.” They can act tough on the internet because they don’t have to deal
with real world confrontation or real life ramifications because they can hide
behind a user name.
3)
As great as online shopping is it shouldn’t go
unnoticed that it isn’t the most secure thing in the world. There are many scammers
out there that can fake a website as a way to get you to submit your credit
card information and personal information than use that to go on a spending
spree. Let’s not forgot also that as convenient as online shopping is the item
which you could be shopping for may not actually be what you receive or it
could come damaged. So while it may be great you should double check that you
are shopping on a secure website otherwise you could wake up to a nice
spending spree that someone else had on your behalf.
