Is the Internet Helping Us or Hurting Us?

         As children of the technological age, the internet has become much more than a simple luxury. Today, it seems, it has been transformed into something more akin to a necessity, a basic right even. But is this perception correct? Is the internet that essential to our life, to our society? The simple answer is yes, or, if not at this moment, it is on the brink of becoming so. The greater, and more important question, however, is whether or not this is a good thing.

            Nowadays, almost every aspect of human life can be done via computers and the internet (whether or not this is a good thing is still being debated). Rather than talking face-to-face, one-on-one, communication has been reduced to long distance interactions; evolving from talking in person and handwriting letters, to giving each other phone calls, to finally texting, emailing and messaging each other over the internet, the intimacy that was once involved with personal communications has been dissolved. But at the expense of intimacy, communication has become much faster and much more cost efficient. With just a small monthly payment, the world and its people are at your fingertips. With a tap of a few keys, you are connected to a business partner in Hong Kong, talking your grandmother in California, taking a test for your online course to become a lawyer, etc.

            Communication is not the only aspect of society that has been greatly altered by the development and expansion of the internet. Information and education has been too. Have you ever been curious about your family ancestry? Just log in to ancestry.com, plug in some information about yourself( your name, your mother’s named, your fathers, name, etc.) and then voila, there on your screen you can see your whole family, right up to your great, great, great uncle twice removed. Wondering how planes fly? Type that into the Google search engine and you will presented with hundreds, if not thousands, of webpages telling you the answer. Need help writing out a bibliography and formatting your essay for your class that starts in ten minutes? There’s easybib.com and hundreds of sets of instructions on how to format. Before the internet, you would have to go to the library and check out a book, or find a professional or specialist to help you out with your questions and problems, but today, in our internet-addicted world, that is not necessary. All you need is a computer and internet access and all of the world’s information is available to you (at least most of it).

            Even on the education front, the internet has caused a transformation with the emergence of online school. For people who are looking to earn a degree and cannot afford the time commitment of enrolling in standard brick and mortar universities and colleges, online schools provide a solution for them. Instead of having to take time out of working to drive to classes, they are able to “go to school on their own time”, as many commercials quip; they are able to work, as well as get an education, without the risk of losing out on pay.  

            Now what are the implications of this? How is the internet impacting society? Surely there are economic costs, but there are social costs as well. As I stated before, intimacy is lost. In addition, colleges suffer from dwindling numbers in student enrollment and lose thousands in tuition payments, work staff numbers can be reduced because of the increase in the efficiency of computing and communication, even professional and specialists suffer from declining number of laypeople going to them for their expert opinion.

Now tell me, is this worth it? Do we trade intimacy and more traditional forms of education and society for a more efficient world? Is the internet truly helping us, or is it hurting us?