Effects of the Internet

The Internet has profound effects on everyday life.  We are constantly being thrown websites all over most of the media, the only contacts people sometimes have are their e-mail addresses, and important information is being exchanged over facebook messages or on myspace walls.  I have been told several times to "facebook" someone for information instead of meeting up or calling them (maybe they just don't like me and it's a fake account?).  Aside from that, people can look up any information they need at the touch of a keyboard, and with broadband, they can do so quite instantaneously.  That's why "wired Americans hear more points of view about candidates and key issues than other citizens" (PEW).

While people use the internet to search for information they support or are already knowledgeable in, they use it to search for information they oppose (like certain presidential candidates) or want to learn more about.  This is interesting to read, especially as the Texas primaries are nearing and I catch myself constantly looking up older debates between candidates on youtube.com or appearances on the Tonight Show.  However, those who look for this information do so in conjunction with television, or their main source of news.  I find it interesting that the internet has not replaced traditional media (yet) in peoples' endeavors to get their regular news, but they are instead verifying or replaying this information via an online forum.  Of course, I still watch CNN on TV (and I prefer to do so) but I watch replays or clips I wasn't able to view realtime on the Web.

Most essentially for America, I think the Internet provides an open forum for democracy.  The PEW report suggested that people are "not using the internet to screen out ideas with which they disagree."  I think this is mainly because people can look up information they want on their own time instead of ever feeling like it is being shoved in their faces.  If someone wants to learn about a different point of view, they can do so at their leisure, such as the issue of gay marriage being sent to their e-mail account.  They can open it any time they want, as opposed to a television commercial or show that has to be watch in realtime.  Of course, this information would not be possible in the first place in mainstream media.  The controversial topics or unpopular choices have a home on the internet and can easily be found in their most raw form without scrutiny from large corporations, advertisers, or conglomerates.

While these may be some political effects of the internet on life, it is absolutely affecting interpersonal relationships in more influential ways.  The "Internet and Social Life" article had a lot to say about this.  While being a personal media tool, the internet is also used as a mass medium.  Here, we can see an intertwining of intimate material in a communal forum.  This type of communication forces members to reevaluate their trust boundaries on a different platform.  Those who move to their relationships online almost have to create a new sense of how large or small their "personal bubble" will be.  Information you want some people to know may not extend to others who you want to remain acquaintances with, and vice versa.

It seems by the readings that those who move their relationships online tend to increase contact with their social networks and feel more socially extroverted than those who are not online.  For instance, according to the Internet and Social Life article, "the more hours the average respondent spent on the Internet, the more time he or she also spent face-to-face with family and friends." Also, it was interesting to see how internet users are more able to find groups and support for any kind of stigmatized illness or special fringe interest or identity.  I understand how it may be difficult to find others that share the same kind of impediment to meet any other way, and an online forum provides an unobtrusive, open place to do so.

I think the options the internet provides are hands-down positive.  Just being able to access this information is incredibly helpful, and its effects seem to be overwhelmingly positive.  It seems like while there are few fringe studies that show negative effects, I think you can make the argument that eating a banana or jumping rope has its ill effects as well.  Most people have become more knowledgeable in many areas of study, more social, more apt to discuss topics, and more influenced by the internet than by any other media.  We not only use the internet for information and entertainment, but we rely on it to exchange important, personal communication with one another.