Internet and World Wide Web Evolution - Term Paper Example

The Internet and/or World Wide Web Evolution I. Introduction a. History of the Internet The origin of the Internet is varied and complex and it sprout from the Cold War hysteria involving the Soviet launch of the Sputnik (first artificial satellite) in the year 1957. With the notion that the United States was losing on the science race, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense was created by the then president to institute the American lead in the science and technology that were applicable to the military (Merriman and Trinkle, 2006). After the launch of the first American satellite by the ARPA scientists, attention was shifted to communications and computer networking. The primary aim was to find a link between the universities, military command centers and the defense contractors so that they could facilitate interaction and research. Other than facilitating the two, it was also to facilitate crucial communication in case of a nuclear attack. The network project was officially launched in 1969 by ARPA through a grant that linked 4 major computers at UCLA, the University of California, the University of Utah and the Stanford University. The age of computer network began in December 1969 when it went online for the first time (Merriman and Trinkle, 2006). b. The Impact of Internet Almost every organization uses the Internet for the daily office tasks. In the business world, the mode of communication has changed and now executives of companies need not to gather in a place for business meetings and conferences. They can meet online and discuss their strategies and agendas at places of their convenience (Gupta, 2003). In the society, communication has become easy and the world has been turned into a minute cyberspace. It is a large source of information and the information has had a significant impact on the society. It has become a common media for sharing information in the society (Gupta, 2003). In the entertainment world, the sharing of entertainment files such as videos and audio files has been made easy. The number of people accessing both beneficial and negative entertainment content is unlimited. The impact is addictive and majority of the entertainment aspects are negative (Gupta, 2003). c. Thesis Since its inception, the Internet allows people around the world to communicate with a click of a mouse and it has vastly become the world’s greatest invention. II. The Invention of Internet a. The Precursor to the Internet, ARPANET The Internet was a product of the efforts to give support to research and it was triggered by the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) network. The ARPANET network was created by the U.S Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency in the early times of 1969. The aim of the project was to facilitate the sharing of computing facilities among the engineers and the computer scientists. In the early 1970s, several academic network initiatives began to evolve and they included the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) NFSNET from the United States and Europe’s GEANT. ARPANET went beyond academia in 1974 under the name Internet and since its inception it has continued to support all the phases of research (Dutton, Goldin and Jeffreys, 2010). b. How Internet Operates In simple terms, the Internet is a collection of computers that are connected to each other to facilitate the sharing of resources and data. The information that is to be shared is sent through cables that are of varying data transfer speeds. Users are connected to the Internet when the web pages are “joined” together and they are capable of viewing the web pages which are usually stored on the servers. There are numerous devices that interface with each other to create Internet. These devices include cable lines, satellites and the phone lines (eHow Contributor, n.d.). Information on the Internet is subdivided into portions of data that are referred to as packets. A computer document or image is broken down into a number of data packets. The packets of data are sent from the source or the host computer through various interconnected networks to the recipient or the destination computer (Hitchcock, 2007). Other than the computer document or image data, header information is also contained in each packet data. The header information has the address of the receiving and the sending computer and the sequence or the order in which the packets ought to be gathered to create the final or the finished document. The receiving computer on the Internet is capable of reading the header information of each of the packet data received. The assembling of the packet data occurs and a finished or final document becomes ready for viewing by the receiver (Hitchcock, 2007). c. How the Internet Came Into Use in the Mainstream Of Society The success of the Internet was very limited at the time after its establishment and it was not until the time a team of European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and a computer scientist (Tim Berners-Lee) who was trained in physics and other colleagues in particle physics invented the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web was invented as a mode of sharing documents within the collaborative research. The web was invented by users, researchers who were working with computer scientists within a big project that required large scale computational ICT resources demands (Dutton, Goldin and Jeffreys, 2010). The invention of the World Wide Web occurred in 1989. It became a popular way of scientists to share written information with others; although this did not replace other Internet resources such as the collections of downloadable information and the e-mail (Morley and Parker, 2009). There have been innovations in the browsers and graphical user interface; these innovations include the Mosaic. Such innovations have contributed to the success of the Web and the Internet through a number of top-down processes and bottom-up processes of diffusion and invention (Dutton, Goldin and Jeffreys, 2010). The use of the World Wide Web began to gain popularity because the graphical web pages and the graphical interface made the use of the World Wide Web easy and more fun than its use in the past (Morley and Parker, 2009). III. The Impact of the Internet on the World a. The Changes Brought about by the Internet The Internet has brought numerous changes in the way people do research, communicate, interact and shop far beyond our country’s borders. It has also brought changes in the way we earn money, conduct politics and participate in cultures and social groups (Elliott, 2008). The Internet has affected how political campaigns are conducted; political parties make use of the email, blogs, raise money with text messaging and communicate with the potential contributors through email (Elliott, 2008). The Internet has made it easy for the merchants and customers to perform transactions online. Irrespective of the location, Internet has made it possible for corporations and businesses to reach their customers. The society and culture has also been affected by Internet. The world has been made small by the Internet and made us aware of other cultures that are beyond our reach (Elliott, 2008).Learning has also changed considering that students can do distant learning in any part of the world. It has facilitated the search, gathering and sharing of information easy for the student and the instructor (Gupta, 2003). b. Effect of Internet on the way Business Is Conducted Almost every business around the world has a website that promotes its businesses and even products. People can now earn money through blogs, web design companies and websites that they have created. Online shops have also come in handy for the people who prefer to shop online than going to the regular shops. c. Effect of Internet on the Entertainment World The Internet has made it easy for people to download anything they want in the entertainment world; they include music, movies, games and episodes. One does not need to go auditions to be discovered as actors or musicians; all one needs to do is to post a video on MySpace or Youtube (Pilkington, 2010). There are vast games that can be played online against anyone in the world through the Internet. Some games can enter the user into the virtual world and facilitate interaction with other people. In these virtual games, one can buy property and build works of arts and develop relationships (Pilkington, 2010). IV. How Internet Has Changed the World a. The Effect of the Internet on Men and Women differently The control of most Internet infrastructure, resources and content is exercised by men. Pornography is the largest activity on the Internet and its distribution is largely done by men but the women are mostly used as sexual objects by men. Women are still viewed as sexual objects in personal homepages and recreational chat rooms (Holmes and Meyerhoff, 2003). In the academia, women take part and respond less than the men. In most cases it appears necessary for the women to create their own groups that facilitate their interests and this suggests that the Internet mainly addresses the interests of men (Holmes and Meyerhoff, 2003). b. Uses of Internet for the Common User The most common uses of the Internet by the common user are: accessing and retrieving information, sending and receiving of emails, making business transactions online, social networking, shopping online, entertainment, e-commerce, accessing services such as online banking purchasing tickets, guidance topics and job seeking, job searching for both the employer and the job seekers, and finding life partners on the Internet (Karen, 2009). V. Negatives of the Internet a. Crimes on the Internet There is real threat of loosing personal identity and other sensitive personal information. An individual’s credit card, bank account and other important personal information are at a risk of reaching the hands of criminals (Rajan, n.d.). b. The Effect of the Internet on Face-to-face Interaction There is risk of having weak social ties among members of a society. This is because people have a reason not to leave their homes as they can interact through the Internet rather than face to face. The Internet has given people the ability to work easily at home, create and sustain friendships and romantic attachments from the comfort of their homes and engage in politics and other social issues from home (Scotty, n.d.). c. Minors Having Access to Adult Content There is no barrier in accessing adult content for both the young and the old. The adult contents can be accessed within the convenience of the user (Rajan, n.d.). IV. Conclusion Since the inception of the Internet, the mode of communication and interaction has drastically changed in the world. Access to information and sharing of the information has become easy. Businesses, social life and entertainment have been affected as well. The impact of Internet cuts across the gender and all ages and its access is unlimited. Although the intentions for making the Internet was for the use of the military, since its inception to the main stream world, the Internet has drastically change the way people communicate and live. The Internet does have drawbacks, but the positives outweigh the negatives and vastly become tone of the world’s greatest inventions. References Dutton, W. H., Goldin, I. & Jeffreys, P. W. (2010). World wide research: Reshaping the sciences and humanities. Massachusetts: MIT Press. eHow Contributor. (n.d.). how does the Internet operate? Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4565294_the-Internet-operate.html Elliott, J. (2008, April 14). How the Internet has changed the world. Socyberty. Retrieved from http://socyberty.com/society/how-the-Internet-has-changed-the-world/ Gupta, V. (2003). Comdex level series Internet and web design. New Delhi: Dreamtech Press. Hitchcock, D. (2007). Patent searching made easy: How to do patent searches on the Internet and in the library. Lulu.com. Holmes, J. & Meyerhoff, M. (2003). The handbook of language and gender. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Karen, K. (2009, Oct. 12). Ten most common uses of Internet. Articlebase. Retrieved from http://www.articlesbase.com/Internet-articles/ten-most-common-uses-of-Internet-1328006.html Merriman, S. A. & Trinkle, D. A. (2006). The history highway: A 21st century guide to Internet resources. New York, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Morley, D. & Parker, C. S. (2009). Understanding computers: Today and tomorrow, comprehensive. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Pilkington, S. (2010, Aug. 4). 5 ways the Internet has changed the world. Ezine @rticles. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Ways-the-Internet-Has-Changed-the-World&id=4797205 Rajan, C. V. (n.d.). Pros and cons of the Internet in today’s society. Helium. Retrieved from http://www.helium.com/items/1251805-pros-and-cons-of-the-Internet-in-todays-society Scotty, R. (n.d.). Social effects of Internet communication. Helium. 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