How the Internet Has Changed the Way We Access Information - Essay Example

The internet has become a very popular tool for academic research, due to its highly useful and user-friendly nature (McCuen, pp. 104). Scholars and students alike can access academic journals and books related to science, medicine, technology, business, and hundreds of other disciplines online, from any corner of the world, which has internet access. This gives them a wide bank of resources to work with, which often eliminates the need for more lengthy procedures such as locating and going through printed versions of books and journals. Another reason why this latter procedure is less desirable is that it is highly time-consuming, as a researcher who is looking for a specific topic will have to leaf through the whole journal to locate a relevant article (McCuen, pp. 104). Whereas, in an online journal, technology assists this research, and the researcher only has to type in the keywords of their search and the computer presents them with relevant journal articles from several different journals, books, and magazines.

It is thus a highly efficient procedure to conduct research online, saving large costs in terms of time and money (McCuen, pp. 104). Finally, another significant strength of the internet as an academic research tool is its user-friendly nature. People, especially those who have not grown up in the era of the internet, are often apprehensive to use the technology of any kind. Thus in research, they may prefer to use manual research from printed material (Laurence & Miller, pp. 1-8). However, the internet is designed in such a way that even beginners have no problem in using the search engines such as Google or online journal libraries, such as Jstor (Laurence & Miller, pp. 1-8). Each has been designed to aid a beginner in their research, and once a beginner starts using these online resources, they do not need to revert to the previous methods due to the simplicity and ease of this one. For all these reasons, the internet is a valuable research tool for academic researchers.

There are, however, a few downsides to this research tool (Laurence & Miller, pp. 1-8). People who are not residing in areas with internet access cannot make use of this tool. Furthermore, people who live in countries, which are not technologically advanced, do not have the advantage of having readily available computers and the internet for every small research assignment. In addition, some journals and books are not available online for free; however, their printer versions could simply be borrowed from libraries (Laurence & Miller, pp. 1-8). Thus, this is an added cost for some researchers, who wish to explore the material of such books or journals. These costs, however, are small in comparison to the numerous benefits of internet research, in terms of both quantity and nature (McCuen, pp. 104). Moreover, the disadvantages mentioned are applicable to a smaller proportion of researchers, since most of them today have internet access. Whereas, the benefits mentioned apply to all the researchers who use the internet, thus making it a largely helpful device, which should be increasingly employed in academic research.