How the Internet Has Changed Everyday Life - Case Study Example

Introduction The Internet, for better or for worse, has had an irrevocable impact on our culture and society. To write a paper about the total impact of the Internet on society would be a daunting task, taking years and 1000s of pages. Where does one begin? After all, the Internet has affected every aspect of our lives – from the way that we shop, dine, entertain, gather news, gossip, read, listen to music, etc., etc. There is no aspect of society that has not been changed by the Internet. Therefore, to narrow the scope, this paper will concern itself with four different aspects of culture that have been impacted – the way that we interact on-line, the way that we meet new people, the way that the Internet can make a star out of ordinary people, and the impact that the Internet has had on businesses due to services like Yelp! One of the affects that the Internet has had on our culture and society is in personal interactions and social circles. That is, it has made many of our social circles infinitely wider and more impersonal. Take for instance, Facebook. With 400 million users as of February 2010, and an additional 25 million users added each month (Kirkpatrick, 2010, p. 334), Facebook has officially become ubiquitous. Facebook has made one’s social circle wider, but much more shallow, with some people having 1,000s of “friends.” And, since it would presumably be impossible for any one person to have that many “friends”, a person’s friends list is mainly populated by “weak ties” who might be mere acquaintances – “it might be someone they met at a conference, or someone from high school who recently ‘friended’ them on Facebook, or somebody from last year’s holiday party. In their pre-Internet lives, these sorts of acquaintances would have quickly faded from their attention. But when one of these far-flung people suddenly posts a personal note to your feed, it is essentially a reminder that they exist” (Thompson, 2008, p. 7). While this is an accurate description of the vast majority of “friends” on one’s Facebook account, it often gets even further removed. Some of the “friends” , in fact, for a lot of us, many of the “friends” are people to whom one has never spoken a word – random people from school that you know of, have seen around, but have never spoken to, along with many “frenemies” who you maybe never liked, all show up on one’s “friend” list and proceed to bombard you with their everyday mundane activities. Yet these silly, mundane, borderline narcissistic news feed updates fascinate even those who do not know the people making the updates. There is even a name for this type of on-line voyeurism – “ambient awareness” (Thompson, 2008, p. 3). It is referred to as being “very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does – body language, sighs, stray comments – out of the corner of your eye” (Thompson, 2008, p. 3). According to Thompson, Facebook is a way for people to somehow not only keep in touch with their friends, but to “know” them by keeping up with the rhythm of their everyday lives – that every mundane update works as a piece of a larger puzzle of who that person is, and, if you put these puzzle pieces together, they form enough of a coherent whole. That if you follow somebody’s updates, or, on Twitter, “tweets”, and piece them together, you can get a sense for that person, as if you were reading an autobiography of their lives. And that seems to be true, in a way. One friend constantly puts conservative messages on her updates, talking disparagingly about “Obamacare” and the like, so you know this “friends” political leanings. The same friend posts about the first word her 11-year-old autistic child said somewhat clearly, and you suddenly can imagine what she goes through. And what these “friends” post as likes and links gives one a further clue as to who they are. Facebook has also had tremendous impact on our culture in other ways. For instance, Facebook is a way to broadcast information in such a way that trends spark and quickly spread (Thompson, 2006). It is also a way to broadcast information that matters to the user, for instance, information about a particular social project that he or she is working on or a particular band that he or she has discovered, and post links and videos for others to peruse. For the curiosity seekers, or people who are just plain bored, these links and other updates are gold mines at times, as new rock bands get attention and social projects get more publicity. It is in this way that Facebook is particularly valuable and has the most impact on our culture at large. Another major way that the Internet has impacted culture is that it has brought about new ways to meet new people. If one is lonely and wants a romantic relationship, then there are endless dating sites. If one has a passion or hobby, then there is probably a “Meetup” where he or she can meet other people who indulge that same hobby, and make friends along the way. So, where, previously, if one was new to a big city and did not know how to meet friends, then life was somewhat difficult. Now, with so many different Meetup groups, meeting up and making friends is much easier to do. Suddenly there are avenues where one can find an exercise buddy, or meet up with others to play board games, or go on wine-tasting adventures, etc. So, this is another major impact on culture. As for Internet dating, it can be either a great tool or a great disappointment. So notes Virginia Vitzthum (2007), author of I Love You, Let’s Meet. For her, Internet dating has a number of traps that it is easy to fall into. For instance, there is the “endless e-mail” trap. This is when two people meet on-line, and click – on-line. For days, weeks even, they exchange long e-mails about their hopes, dreams and fears. At once, each knows intimate details about the other, because sharing intimate details is easier by e-mail then it would be face-to-face. Slowly, the two participants “fall in love”, and have a sense of excitement about the other person. Then, the moment of truth – time to meet in person. Then, when this happens, there is….nothing there. No spark, no witty conversation, no chemistry. Because of this, Vitzthum recommends that initial e-mails be kept to a bare minimum, because it is, in the end, impossible to fall in love with somebody in cyberspace (Vitzthum, 2007, p. 101-106). And, of course, this is only one pitfall of Internet dating. Another one is that the Internet dating process sometimes turns out to be like running on an endless hamster wheel that goes nowhere. Like the hamster on the wheel, the process wears you out, and, when you step off the wheel, you are still in the exact same cage you were always in. Blind date after blind date, getting one’s hopes up, then having them dashed, seemingly endlessly. Then cynicism enters the process, along with fatigue – “I have to meet another person”? And, if you are a man, the process can be expensive, as there is still an unwritten expectation that that man should pay for at least the first “date”. Not to mention the fact that, if a date happens and does not go exactly as planned, then there is not a motivation to try to make it work, because, after all, there are 50 more people dying to meet you, so why settle? Move on to the next one. Of course, this discussion discounts the people who do meet their one and only on-line and lives happily ever after, and, believe it or not, there are those people out there too. However, whatever outcome one has on the Internet dating scene, one thing is clear – the Internet has irrevocably changed the way that people date. Another major change is that the Internet can create stars out of ordinary people with talent. For instance, Colby Caillat, the singer who now has a multiplatinum album to her name, got her start on MySpace. As she explained, she was reluctant to put her music on her MySpace page, but, when she did, she gained a substantial following on-line, which put her in a position to get a major record contract (Mansfield, 2007, p. 1). The rest is history. It is clear that the Internet is responsible for her career, as she tends to be a shy person with major stage fright, who would ordinarily have difficulty breaking out (Mansfield, 2007, p. 2). But the anonymity of the Internet gave her courage to put out her songs, which have made her a major star. Another major star who owes her career to the Internet is Julie Powell. Powell started a blog that featured her adventures in cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Through her blog, that detailed not only her cooking attempts, but her various marital problems, she, like Caillat, gained a following that grew exponentially. Eventually, publishing houses noticed and Powell wrote a bestselling book on her experiences, titled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously (Powell, 2009). She also has had a movie made of her life, starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as herself. Powell is therefore the very definition of an Internet star – before the Internet, Powell could have undertaken this endeavor and nobody would have known about it, or cared. But her ability to put her efforts on a blog, therefore out into the world, enabled her to draw enough of a following that she was able to turn her cooking passion into a major book and movie, a feat that would have been difficult, if not impossible, before the advent of the Internet. YouTube has also created Internet stars. One example is Lucas Cruikshank, a Columbus, Nebraska teenager who is better known to the Internet world as “Fred Figglehorn” (“Fred Figglehorn”). “Fred Figglehorn” is a fictional six-year-old child who has a “dysfunctional family and anger management issues” (“Fred Figglehorn”). Cruikshank, along with this cousins, started a video production company and put his first Fred video out in 2006. Since then, Cruikshank has put well over 50 videos on YouTube that have, combined, been seen by 100s of millions of people, and Nickelodeon has made a movie featuring the character, with the aim of creating a “Fred” franchise (“Fred Figglehorn”). What is clear by these examples is that anybody can become a star on the Internet. Starting a blog, putting out videos, uploading music onto your MySpace or Facebook page – these are all paths to stardom that can be taken advantage of by anybody with a bit of tech savvy, a fresh idea and a lot of determination. Before the Internet, nobody would have ever heard of Lucas Cruikshank, Julie Powell and Colbie Caillat. They would have been anonymous, and continued to be so. Cruikshank probably would have made funny videos that are seen by his friends, and might have garnered a bit of local notoriety, but probably would not have had a platform for which millions of people could tune into these videos. Powell, as stated before, might have undergone her project of cooking every recipe in Child’s book, but this endeavor most likely would have been for her own satisfaction, and nothing major would have come of it. Caillat might have been a different story, for her music is popular and many people believe her to be very talented. She might have found a record label regardless of whether MySpace was invented. However, as she is, by her own admission, shy, getting attention might have been difficult, and she most likely would have been another anonymous artist with ambitions and dreams and no way to realize them. The Internet also has had an effect on businesses, both influencing the way that people do business and also the way that people find businesses. One of these ways is through Yelp! Yelp! is a service to where people can find any business they like and find out what others are saying about that business, along with seeing how that business rates overall, with a 1-5 star system. Whereas before, if one is looking for a car mechanic, and wanted to find a good one who does not cheat, one had to rely on personal references or, if there were no personal references available, had to find a mechanic and take one’s chances. Now, with Yelp!, reviews are out on these mechanics, as well as a 1-5 star ranking, so it is easier to tell which mechanics are reputable and honest and which are not. Perhaps one of the biggest industries that has been hit by the Yelp! phenomenon is the restaurant industry. Before the Internet, if a person is disgruntled with a particular restaurant – perhaps the food was not cooked well, the service was terrible, or both – the recourse for that person is to complain to the manager, complain to every close contact who will listen, and never go back to the restaurant again. The impact therefore was minimal and contained. Now, that same person has the option of broadcasting the bad experience for the whole world to see, and restaurants ignore this at their peril (Shilcutt, 2010, p. 3). Yelp! and sites like Yelp! are increasingly being taken to heart by the on-line community, who are reluctant to part with hard-earned cash at a restaurant unless that restaurant is going to be worth the money. It has changed the way that restaurants do business, as bad Yelp! reviews are often the impetus for restaurants to make fundamental changes. Therefore, Yelp! and other sites that encourage on-line reviews from anonymous diners have the potential to change the restaurant industry by making them more receptive to their individual diners’ needs. Conclusion The Internet has changed all of our lives irrevocably in ways great, small, positive and negative. The way that we interact is changed by Facebook and other social networking sites, as one accumulates endless “friends” who one really does not know and never knew in the first place. Meeting people is easier because of the Internet, yet, as with the case of Internet dating, the impact that not been entirely positive, although there undoubtedly are many couples who do owe their union to these sites. Stars have been created with nothing more than a blog, MySpace site or video to put onto YouTube. Restaurants, and all other businesses, can no longer get away with poor customer service, which will have hopefully a revolutionary impact on the way that these businesses operate. In short, the Internet has changed every aspect of everyday life. Sources Used “Fred Figglehorn.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2001. Web 11 December 2010. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Fred_figglehorn> Kirkpatrick, David. The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Mansfield, Brian. “22 Million Clicks Later, MySpace Launches Colbie Caillat’s Career.” USA Today 7 Oct. 2007. < http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2007-10- 07-colbie-caillat_N.htm> Powell, Julie. Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Shilcutt, Katherine. “The Yelp Effect.” [Weblog entry.] HoustonPress Blogs. 17 March 2010. < http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2010/03/the_yelp_effect.php> 12 Dec. 2010. Vitzthum, Virginia. I Love You, Let’s Meet: Adventures in On-Line Dating. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2007. Thompson, Clive. “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” The New York Times 7 Sept. 2008, New York ed.: MM42 Read More