How has the internet and social media changed our society - Essay Example

How internet and the social media has changed our lives Internet and social media has played a great part in transforming people’s life and making it to be much easier and worth living it. In about 20 years ago, very few people had ever heard of the name internet if there were any. In 1991, if a person was asked to say what a domain name is, they could have looked at the one asking in a blank face. All that has changed since internet was discovered. People use the internet services each and every day in their activities, which include online banking and communicating with their friends. Social media was launched about nine years ago. Social media has also changed the way people live to a better way since people can share their problems with their friends and get comfort and encouragement (Golden 2010). This essay looks at several ways the internet and social media has affected how people live. Internet can be considered as one of the greatest inventions that have been witnessed in our generation. This has prompted some people to claim that internet has ushered in an important new revolution which they claim that is as important as the industrial revolution (Dijck 2013). Internet has altered the way people communicate with each other, how people shop and how they get their information. The internet influence has spread far beyond the online world confines which has affected many aspects of the lives we live. One of the main ways internet has transformed our lives is by giving us an access to any information that we need. It has helped in opening up a world of possibilities where information can be shared. Before internet was invented, students had a lot of difficulties doing their research since they had to do it in the library. That is not the case in the internet era since the information that the students want is right at their fingertips. There are search engines in the interne that have ready information that the students and other researchers look for. These search engines includes Google and Yahoo search engines (Golden 2010). The Google website is one of the most successful sites which tend to be the most visited site and the leader in a market that is very competitive. Google has a big coverage and a high speed of results that makes it easier for the researchers. Internet has made the world to be seen as a global village. Internet has helped in eliminating communication barrier that is caused by geographical distance (Golden 2010). Through the social media sites, one can have friends from all over the world, from as far from Zimbabwe to China. Internet has also helped in growing of businesses. This is by having devices like the dedicated serves which allows the offices to remain connected every time. It has also made shopping easier which can nowadays been done online (Lyn Gorman and David McLean,2009). This has made the whole world to look like a normal shopping mall, where someone can buy dresses from Paris and designer shoes from London. Internet has also made banking easier, where one can bank online and manage their finances without having to go to the banking hall each and every time they need the banking services. In early days, searching for jobs was a difficult task where one could only find jobs from the local newspaper and the recruitment agencies (Dijck 2013). . This has however changed thanks to internet as one can now search for jobs online. Talking of jobs, internet has helped many people by giving them an opportunity to work on the comfort of their homes. This is through the online jobs where one can earn with their pajamas on. This is an easier way to work, where one becomes his or her own boss, meaning that they do not experience the wrath of the bosses as other workers do. However, the greatest gift that is brought by the revolution that internet has experienced is education, where a person can learn everywhere by having online classes (Golden 2010). Online classes are considered to be superior to the face to face learning. Giving example with JSTOR, this is a site that has over 4.5 million articles that are school based from around 800 academic or educational publishers that are available online but with a subscription. Social media has also changed the way people live. Social media is said to be everywhere. This is from twitter, where there are some twits tweeting and the long and lost friends having to reconnect again after spending some years without seeing each other on Facebook. This shows how the social media is having an impact on our social life and our day to day lives. Before the blogging era and the new social media, most of the internet users had their communications through email (Lyn Gorman and David McLean,2009). Later on during the information age, some social media such as MySpace were invented. Later on, MySpace faded away slowly where two new social media sites were invented. These are twitter and Facebook. Social media has affected how we communicate with each other, whether professionally or personally. Twitter and Facebook platforms have given us the ability to keep in touch with family members, friends and colleagues (Golden 2010). Other platforms like LinkedIn which is a professional platform has made it possible and easier for the employers to find people and give them work. Teachers can be in a position to speak with their students on the social media, which makes it easier for the students that have problems with their academics during class time. Internet and social media has a video sharing site that is user based. This is YouTube, which is seen as one of the most significant icons that have been invented in the century. One can upload a video in a couple of seconds to a big audience that can number up to millions. There is another aspect, which is the webcam. Webcam helps people to interact face to face regardless of the distance between the two parties. This has helped the parents who travel for business trips to be in a position to see and talk to their kids. This shows that communication remains one of the biggest impacts that social media and internet have to the humans. It has helped in democratizing mass communication where a person can post or tweet something on Facebook and twitter respectively that can be seen by everybody (Golden 2010). The social networking sites have help to revolutionize how people manage their social lives. There are other websites that has altered the shape of the entertainment that people had before the invention of internet. These are iPlayer and YouTube. Social media has also helped some businesses to shine. The internet has made some contributions to the development of a number of several businesses all over the world. The social sites platforms have given the entrepreneurs the exposure needed with the ease and effectiveness they desire. Through twitter and Facebook, the big companies can make promos of their services and products to a large number of audiences who happens to be quite receptive (Lyn Gorman and David McLean,2009). However, the complex nature that the marketing in the social media has made a number of entrepreneurs to prefer working with qualified freelancers who specialize in their desired trade. Social media has also helped people to change their careers after seeing better careers in the social sites. It has also helped in creating a free world where a person can simply say his or her opinions and share idea with others with much ease. This is because the spreading of any news that is occurring and ideas cannot be blocked by any organization any longer. The reason behind this is that as long as a person can connect to World Wide Web and express his or her idea, the information that the person desires to s share will be known to the world (Lyn Gorman and David McLean, 2009). Internet has had a huge impact to the lives of the people to a point that people can’t figure out how to work without it. Internet is considered to be the greatest invention that has affected the lives of the people most. Internet has become so popular that it has affected every aspect of people’s life, how people share information, how they conduct their businesses, how they keep in touch with their friends and also families and how they earn their money. With internet’s help, people can be in a position to communicate with a lot of people all over the world without depending on the slow mails that used to rock the world sometimes back(Golden 2010). A lot of businesses in the modern world use the internet service to communicate with their customers. This has helped to the growing of the businesses where the retailers see it as a chance to reach their global customers rather than a threat. Consumers see this as an easy way to have price comparisons and the features and quality of a product before making a choice on purchasing it (Lyn Gorman and David McLean, 2009). If one has internet services, they can bank online rather than queuing in the banking halls and thus saving time. It is right to say that the invention of internet and social media is one of the greatest inventions to be made in recent times. Work cited Dijck van José, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media, Oxford University Press, 2013. Dill E. Karen, The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology, Oxford University Press, Jan 17, 2013. Golden Michelle, Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms: The Guide to Establishing Credibility and Accelerating Relationships, John Wiley & Sons, Nov 17, 2010. Gorman Lyn, David McLean, Media and Society Into the 21st Century: A Historical introduction, John Wiley & Sons, Feb 17, 2009. Louis Leung, Multiple determinants of life quality: the roles of Internet activities, use of new media, social support, and leisure activities, August 2005, retrived March 15 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2004.04.003, Read More