The Impact of Internet on Societies and Cultures - Essay Example

The Impact of Internet on Societies and Cultures Racism is one of the historical injustices that various societies contend with. Racism can be defined as the ideologies that incite hatred, violence or discrimination against other individual or groups (Jakubowic 2017). Such discriminations are majorly based on racial differences, nationality, descent, color, and religion or ethnic background. The internet has played a leading role in spreading racism. It is often an ideal place for spreading ideological extremism. For instance, anti-Semitism, Islamist, Islamophobia, ultra-nationalists and White power ideologies have been widely spread over the Internet (Glaser and Green 180). This implies that racist organizations, as well as other antisocial organizations, exploit Internet to achieve their objectives. Social media networks are widely being used propagate vilification and hostility against other groups. In most cases, cyber-racism and hate speech in social media networks are characterized by cultural and ethnic divides. Although the Internet has revolutionized many areas of the human society, it also has far-reaching negative consequences when abused, misused or used without proper guidance. Dixit and Green (188) assert that the Internet is one of the platforms through which people propagate racial violence. It is observable that people can freely interact and express their views on the Internet without jurisdiction or geographical restriction. However, this freedom has not been accompanied by the responsibilities that it deserves. For this reason, cyber racists have seriously abused that freedom. Such groups often use the Internet as the avenue in which to unleash hostile sentiments against whom they consider detestable or unwelcome. In many cases, the groups or individuals that have been attacked do not take such prejudice kindly. They are likely to respond to such negativity in a similar negative manner or with a higher degree of counter-retaliatory abuse. Ultimately, it is easy to observe that the Internet is a potential battlefield for racist groups. It is also an avenue for extending extreme ideologies that result in social divide. Sexism is another largely contested consequence of the Internet usage. Sexism refers to the discrimination against women. It could be true that men and women have equal access to the Internet globally (Szoka and Marcus 69). However, the same cannot be said about online experiences of both sexes. It this case, women face a wider spectrum of discrimination. The discrimination is in many cases, multifaceted and to a greater extent non-stop. Discrimination against women in the social media takes various forms, which include stalking, sex chats and posting of abusive photos (Douglas and Robbie 12) Many social media companies are today grappling with some of the most harmful and serious social implications of the Internet. The issues that are associated with harassment of women have become rampant with the arrival of contemporary communication technologies. Statistically, men dominate the online communication and Internet usage compared to women (Berberick 6). There is also gender disparity among the tech staffs in major social network companies. For instance, Chemaly (1) observes that 85 percent of the tech staff employed by Facebook is men. Similar trends are seen in the case of Twitter’s workforce where men makeup 70 percent of the workforce and occupy 79 percent of the leadership positions. Although the Internet technology cannot directly be blamed for such disparity in the contemporary workplaces, it is evident that evident that the Internet is just a continuation of negative social practices. It is also evident that gender intimidation is not only limited to the online portals, but also spills the companies managing Internet connections. Such gender gaps in the social realm, as demonstrated by social media companies, affect the interaction and participation of men and women in the social sphere. The Internet is perhaps more lethal and dangerous that it is perceived. It has dug deep holes in various religious values. In this case, Brey (1) observes that Internet critics view as the major course of moral decay. As a result, it has since offended various communities. Some often suffer in silence and are in most cases characterized by the fear of confronting the matter because it has overlapped far much beyond their control. In other communities, however, Internet access is being monitored and is controlled under strict terms. For instance, according to Brey (1), the Internet is banned from Jewish houses because it is considered more poisonous among the Jewish community. Although such restrictions may be refused and considered religious extremism or misunderstanding, the overall impacts of the Internet the society’s social context is evident. Technological advancements have made access to the Internet a lot easier to access and use than a decade ago. Internet enabled mobile such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones have increased significantly. It is also arguably true that ownership of such devices cut across age and gender. It is common to find underage children in possession of such mobile devices. However much these technological advancement made it easy to access the internet, such advancements also allow infiltration of harmful content to minors. A significant amount of detrimental contents such as pornographic literature is all over the Internet. This makes children and young adults more vulnerable to moral decay. That is because after watching such contents, they are tempted to practice them. That happens to them at tender ages when they are still too young to understand the consequences of such indulgence. That is to say that not only does the Internet erode moral values, but also risks the lives of its users. In cultural context, the Internet can be viewed as the platforms for mass hypnosis. The Internet often leads to blind adoption of emerging behavior such as dressing style. In this case, it arguably true that some of the celebrities that are regarded as role models by most people tend to use Internet to entice their followers. For this reason, their potential followers begin copying their mannerisms and eventually start behaving just like them. For instance, such followers always mimic their deviant dressing codes in the false belief that all of them are fashion role models. Consequentially, this has ultimately resulted in the adoption of ways of life that erode vital cultural values. For example, after viewing the photos of the public figures they identify with, young girls tend to wear clothes that leave them half-nude. This is a leeway for other social vices such as prostitution and increased rape cases (Eluwole et al. 74). According to Kukar- Kinney, Intihar and Leahy (9), the Internet has many negative social implications. In this context, the Internet is seen to be responsible for interpersonal conflicts. The lack of face-to-face communication that is phenomenal among the Internet users is likely to result in others taking advantage of their anonymity to be cheeky. Such trends are seen as responsible for a number of social-media conflicts. In addition, Internet communications, especially text chats, are characterized by lack of nonverbal cues (McKenna 1). That has led to conflicts among the communicating parties. Furthermore, the advent of technology results in social disintegrations. For instance, since Internet users communicate easily irrespective of the geographical distance, people take advantage of their location anonymity so that they can engage in all sorts of inappropriate communications. This aspect of Internet communication can result in social disintegrations such as family breakups especially when one spouse discovers that the online habits of the other partner. As has been seen, the internet is responsible for a number of ills in the society despite its positive side. The perceived benefits of the Internet cannot be ignored. However, this article has demonstrated that negative impacts of Internet outperform its perceived positive implications. It is the origin of social vices such as prostitution, immoral behaviors, child abuse, inappropriate communication, deviant behavior, sex abuses and racial slur. Work Cited Berberick, S. Nicholl. The Objectification of Women in Mass Media: Female Self-Image in Misogynist Culture. The New York Sociologist, Vol. 5, (2010): 1-7. Brey, Philip. Evaluating the Social and Cultural Implications of the Internet. 2005. Web. May 4, 2015. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1215933 Chemaly, Soraya. Silicon Valley sexism: why it matters that the Internet is made by men, for men. NewStatesman. February 4, 2015. Web. May 4, 2015. http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2015/02/silicon-valley-sexism-why-it-matters- Internet-made-men-men Douglas, Karen and Robbie M. Sutton. “A Giant Leap for Mankind”, but What About Women? The Role of System-Justifying Ideologies in Predicting Attitudes Toward Sexist Language. 2014. Web. May 4, 2015. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/41076/1/Douglas%20&%20Sutton%20JLSP%20in%20press%2020 14.pdf Eluwole, Opeoluwa Tosin, Nsima Sylvanus Udoh and Olugbenga, David. “The Impact of Internet on African Education and Culture.” International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology, 4. 3(2014): 69-77. Jakubowic, Andrew. Cyber Racism. 2012. Web. May 4, 2015. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact =8&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.futureleaders.com.au%2Fbook_cha pters%2Fpdf%2FMore-or- Less%2FAndrew_Jakubowicz.pdf&ei=J3NHVaCNFMG1ae_BAQ&usg=AFQjCNGU8l CUZVS_ZSft48ogDiClNRv09w&sig2=BrhhRQjqcHubiFOVxRUb5w&bvm=bv.922914 66,d.d2s Kukar-Kinney, Monika, Andrew Intihar and Nicole Leahy. Negative Consequences of Internet Consumption: A Qualitative Study European Advances in Consumer Research 8.9 (2008). McKenna, Bargh. The Internet and Social Life. 2004. Web. May 4, 2015. Szoka, Berin and Marcus Adams. The Next Digital Decade. Washington, D.C.: TechFreedom, 2010. Read More