Impact of Internet in Our Day Lives and Technology as a Threat to Privacy - Essay Example

IMPACT OF INTERNET IN OUR DAY LIVES AND TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO PRIVACY Student Name Student ID Affiliation Date Question 7 Introduction Internet plays a major role in our day to day lives, starting from multimedia, electronic devices and computers are all the things that come up from internet and that we will come across and deal with them every day, the importance of the internet is increasing daily among everybody as it is among the newest and the most convenient way of media that connects people easily, so it would be reasonable to think about it in terms of its good aspects and the bad aspects it comes along with, how it influences us and our social behavior and how it will shape the future.(Nicholas 2011) Life has changed drastically due to internet and that can be proven with no doubt, many benefits and advantages of internet can be observed that shows the advantages of the medium, in short internet has changed life in a positive way. Internet usage can be differentiated, it can be at home for personal purposes or at the workplace for professional purposes, nowadays there is the normality of using internet in any part of the day, use of internet has been seen where it is being used to source information regarding various topics, some people will use internet for social purposes like chatting in community groups Almost all the required information being sought in the internet is available, even search of specific information will be available in the internet within a short period of time, nowadays internet have search engines like Google ,yahoo, Bing and many others where you just type what you are looking for and it is brought automatically unlike the past where you had to send a letter and wait for a reply from the reception or had to make some telephone calls, one can upload information on the internet easily nowadays where you will just need to create your own homepage and put the information for others to access the information(Ger 2003) Modern offices have embraced technology greatly and use of computers and the internet have become a norm, companies use computers and internet to actually sell and market their products and services in sites that have large traffic flow of people such as the social sites, faster development have also been observed, schools, universities and research institutions have greatly embraced the internet and the benefit it brings, internet has been able to connect many people at the same time and has helped so much in cost saving. One can make a lot of money in the internet if you are a leader of a product where you can use the internet as a marketing tool and where you will find suggestions on how to develop and improve your product from different people among experts(Mia 2013) Nowadays computers and internet have brought work closer to people where even those at home can find work, this brings about closeness to one’s family and on the other hand employers argue that people working from home are more motivated than those working in the office, use the internet to join community, new social contacts can be created all over the world which is almost impossible without the internet, communication is enhanced abroad where this medium cuts down these costs drastically, take for instance when you are talking to someone in UK and you are in USA the cost of calling that person by phone will cost you ten times more than by just chatting through face book or Skype. internet brings people closer of all races, gender, professions and religions where there are no place limitations of boundaries and places, freedom of contribution has been created where one can raise any issue to people all over the world. In real life we can see that internet is cheaper, sending an email is far cheaper than sending an SMS even within boundaries, there is ease of sending images, videos, recordings among others cheaply and fast (mehdi 2003) Another crucial advantage of the internet is the ease it provides in accessing information, there has been dictionaries and online reference books which changed the earlier way of going to the bookshop or going to the library to search for information, again it is far more cheaper and time saving to search from the internet than to go and buy a book in the bookshop and go and read it in the library, updated information is available in the internet that the books do not have, old articles can be found in the internet archives for example where you are looking for an old newspaper article. According to (Justin 2006) in his book of marketing, internet acts as an advertising company, most companies have their websites where one can find all the crucial information and the products that are dealt with, some companies even sell their products and services online and one does not have to go to shop for some products where you will find long queues and beat traffic. Online trading has brought riches to others, people can get online trading information on the internet and apply the same in the stock exchange, and some software’s of the computers through the help of the internet can guide when to trade in shares when their prices are low. Schools, universities and other institutions of learning have nowadays come up with online courses where students receive notes, assignments and tests online, it has also improves cross boarder learning where one can study at a university in UK and he is in Africa. The information on the internet is a database and can offer a lot of services, it can sometimes be free which makes life easier and is very useful to any person in the world (Sonia 2009) Some shortcoming either can be found on the way of internet, viruses can be downloaded where one needs to install a firewall, buy programs that are antivirus and keep updating them regularly, hacking can also be experienced on the internet where your information can be leaked to other unknown sources. One cannot know how much money will be spent on all these things so as to prevent them, computers on the other hand are expensive to acquire so that one could access the internet thanks to the cheaper phones that have been innovated to support internet but will be only limited to perform certain specific tasks. People have lost money on the internet through hacking and pretence, a person would sell a product to you and not having the authentication of the product or the company you release funds and later find out that there was actually no product on sale. And in most cases it would be very difficult to follow these people again. Duncan(2001) notes that internet has been more and simpler to use nowadays, children are able to use it as it has been introduced in schools for learning and packages nowadays for older people are offered cheaply in cyber and colleges. One does not have to read the newspaper anymore nowadays, with the internet it will be easier to access the site offering the paper and you can browse the pages easily online. A major negative aspect brought about by the internet is that of altering the social behavior and children are the most affected by this, nowadays parents leave children with computers and internet and will find themselves in sites that will ruin their morals or may spend most of the time on the internet and not do class work. Nowadays internet knowledge is getting more crucial to everyone since it has proven that it is a very powerful media and is going to be used in everything in the future, internet should not replace reality, children and adults should use internet for specific and constructive purposes, one need to teach his children on how to differentiate bad and good information on the internet and how to use it for their benefits (Kathleen 2002) Rena (2003) highlights on how one can do everything on the internet nowadays without leaving the house, one can shop, meet friends and chat with them and even paying of the internet has been made easier by the use of credit cards and the knowledge of the way the transmission of funds is done. One will find surfing as being cheap but on the other hand when using internet you will find that you will incur other costs such as buying of a computer and the software’s required and to get a computer and the internet the is working efficiently one must keep updating these programs regularly. Internet has been able to offer most of what could not be manually offered by other inventions, it has simplified everything from work, to research to studies, it has made people achieve more from jobs and new developments, software developers and computer technicians have found new ways on how to make money while others are working at the comfort of their homes, information found in the internet has helped many in health matters, how to solve some problems and on how to come up with some developments. Combating crime has been easy nowadays due to the use of GPS tracking systems and installation of CCTVs on buildings and roads, when one has a car or a phone that is GPS enabled it would be easy for the authorities to track the location of a person, internet has also made the world a global village in trade where one can trade with people abroad and get information about their products even before making a purchase, the method of funds transfers also will involve internet and will be transmitted using the electronic funds transfer process (Larry 2008) Since the invention of cell phone the internet has been on revolution, it has been changing the way of lives and how we run our businesses; it has eased life in many fields starting from banks, hospitals and schools, Bringing information closer to people and creating jobs for others. Internet on the other hand has caused an ethical debate in our information privacy, if approached from a social-ethical perspective we can assess the effect of internet on the privacy of information, in the current age we are in of information where many activities whether activities where either social or economic are information based due to the development and the use of internet, the world has become more open and has a number of knowledgeable people in handling of the internet. Access of information has been simplified and the right of privacy has been on threat due to this flow of information, ethics is what a person is supposed to do and what people regard as good in the eyes of the society, ethics help a person to do and behave in the right way and obtain what if required to complete the human(Spinello 1995) Privacy is the condition of an individual where the public is excluded, an individual has the right to be alone on his will and this right is protected under private law, right of privacy is crucial just as the other rights and freedoms and thus there is a relationship between human dignity, freedom and privacy, there must be understanding that a human being is autonomous and his rights and freedoms should be recognized, the right of privacy is a part of social responsibility but may also be violated by law where the government may seize a person’s documents or a court of law may demand information for lawful process. Privacy is closely related to information and the information facts which belong to a person when in isolation, privacy of information may fall under various categories, Private communications where a person will communicate through the internet and will wish to keep it private for example the emails of a person, body privacy is also crucial and health information of a person should be kept private, personal information which refer to the information that fall under a specific person for example financial information and bibliographic due to its relevance to all information professionals, possessions information where one keep his possessions should be kept private and a person has the right to keep this information private. Although internet has played a major role in gathering, storing, retrieval and distribution of this information it has a negative effect that relates to manipulation, accessibility and inaccessibility of information, a wider access which is simultaneous is created and makes it easy for people to access personal information and one can also be prevented from accessing crucial information by means of passwords. Internet facilitates manipulation of information where the information intended to reach a specific audience reaches them manipulated(Brian 2000) Privacy of people has been affected in various areas, Use of CCTV cameras in the offices which uses internet to monitor people in the workplace has been to increase productivity but the ethical problem here is that the privacy of people in the office has been done away with and the people will always be in fear as they are being watched, interception and reading of peoples messages in email is also another ethical problem to an individual, some managers in the organization to intercept and read others staff emails and have software that monitor what others are doing hence no privacy. Merging the databases which have and contain information which is personal which is known as data banking where individuals do not know that their information if being integrated and or whether the information is correct, this information has the risk of also falling in careless hands who will not keep it private, buying cards have also been on the issue of privacy where the card has some crucial information about a person where some people including marketing companies will be observing your shopping habits on the other side and will use this information to bother you on things you are not interested in (vesper 2000) Hacking and cracking is bound to happen nowadays to any computer with the assistance of the internet and this will publicize your information to people one doesn’t even know, developments of various software like the Pretty Good Privacy posses a major threat to both the legal and the ethical issues since it will protect information kept by criminals. On the level of an individual, loss of spontaneity and dignity can be observed, internet can be seen continuously as a threat to the right and freedom to privacy, on the social and economic side where more information is involved in businesses and companies who specialize in processing of information there is also a great threat to privacy where they use mostly personal information as a commodity(David 2006) Various ethical issues involved when handling and processing of both private and personal information are seen when deciding the type of information whether private or personal the information professional should gather because the information may be crucial to other parties, the information gathered should be treated confidentially or can depend on the parties will, the purpose for gathering any information should be communicated and the person must be notified and the rights of a person whose private information is being used or distributed should not be violated and should be on his own will to provide such information. When dealing with internet various ethical norms should act as guidelines and instruments should be formulated to address the issue of ethics, truth should act as an ethical norm since it will ensure that the information dealt with is factual and correct, the information professional will be guided by this norm for the right way of handling private information, freedom is also a crucial norm to be considered and the person is free to make choices on his privacy and the information professional should obey this rule and lastly, the human rights must be observed at all levels, a person’s privacy should not be interfered by the society unlawfully(Lori 2012) Since the use of internet entails use of social networks, communications using emails and browsing to other websites, internet will become an issue when one will come to some of the websites that will ask for personal information, for some sites they may be dealing with online shopping where one is required to insert credit card numbers and the sites that offer emailing services ask for third parties consent to read the emails and this raises questions on privacy whether these people gathering this information will disclose it to other users. The real challenge here is that the avoidance of data disclosure which is of personal information which is collected and stored in websites so the sharing of information and data without disclosing information which is private, some people denies non existence of internet privacy while others necessitates it, complete anonymity can be used to improve privacy and will control the disclosure of one’s personal information though the real users can be tracked using identifiable information(Edward 2002) Conclusion Freedom of expression brought about by social networking has resulted in publicizing of information which is wrong and undesired using wrong identity, they are free to contribute to anything starting from topics, chat rooms, forums and blogs, and this will not require also the other users to disclose their identity, it does not mean anything that is posted on the internet is private and confidential, some people will shun online trade, banking and shopping because they doubt the confidentiality of their information and some people will fear visibility on the internet for various reasons. Demarcating what is public and what is private is the trade-off here, privacy of one’s information is crucial so as not to put internet ethics at stake. To sum up everything, the internet is of great use and will continue to be of great use in our day lives, from the house, to our business and to the places of work where we are employed internet is becoming of great value, in fact nowadays one can lag very behind if there is no access to internet, internet creates wealth, provides any information and can help in solving many problems due to availability of currently updated information, on the other hand it can create privacy threats to the information we share on the internet, there are companies which are involved in the collection and keeping this information in databases and it would be hard to tell whether these information could be shared with other users, the debate on information privacy will always be there as it has failed to prove the ways information sharing could be restricted from flowing to unwanted users. Internet is good and I can’t imagine life without it. References Ger M. Craddock (2003) Assistive Technology: Shaping the Future : AAATE'03 IOS press, Netherlands Jarice Hanson (2007) 24/7: How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play. Library of congress USA Joseph Migga Kizza (2013). Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age. Springer science and business media. USA Mia Consalvo, Charles Ess (2011) The Handbook of Internet Studies. Wiley Publishers. New York Nicholas Carr (2011): What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The shallows. New York City Read More