Is Internet Boon or Bane free essay sample

The Internet: Boon or Bane? The easy answer is both, of course. Like every tool weve invented, the Net can be used for good or ill. The extent to which it is ill-used is not its fault, any more than its a cars fault when someone is run over. So many peopleoverwhelmingly older people, say, 45 and upbelieve the Internet is a vast shadowy jungle, where monstrous things lurk, ready to tear out your soul and eat it raw. They are right in part. The World part of World Wide Web is literally true: the Net is much like our Earth, civilized and urbane in many areas, wild and insane in many others. People young enough to hear the word mouse and not think of a rodent have a different view. Theyre intimately familiar with their own little hamlet on what used to be called the Information Superhighway. We will write a custom essay sample on Is Internet Boon or Bane? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page and familiarity only breeds contentment in their elders. Theyre bored; they want to explore, and the dark places have an undeniable allure.So they poke and prod, and the more reckless of them are claimed, in one way or another, by the spiders that do lurk in the web. When the Net was birthing, optimism ran high: here was a tool that could be used to connect people, to facilitate truly global perspectives ultimately to save humanity from itself. Before this thought had been fully articulated, pornography and worse had taken rootand the soil of the Net is fertile indeed. We all know the majority of Net traffic is connected with smut. Of course, its an even bet anything we all know is wrong.Lo and behold, according to The Straight Dope, while sex is indeed popular, it ranks well behind music and (surprisingly, to me, at least) travel as a search item. Its true that hardcore porn is trivially easy to discover online. Before my spam filters evolved into things that actually worked as advertised (I havent received a single spam email in I cant recall how long), I often used to get such gems as Suzie And Her Horse and Watch Jenna Take It All delivered unsolicited into my Inbox on a near daily basis.But then, its trivially easy to find just about anything online: old friends, new friends, job opportunities.. . if youre inclined towards skullsweat, you can mine the minds of millions and come away with the equivalent of a Masters degree in nearly any field you can imagine, all for the cheap-and-ever-falling price of a high-speed connection. Its often asserted that, as teen culture continues to migrate online, attention spans are rapidly shrinking. An article in todays Globe and Mail notes that although teenage television time is decreasing (like thats a bad thing? , the few dramas still watched include Lost and 24, both of which feature long and complex story arcs, proving that youth are willing to pay close attention under certain circumstances. Teenagers I know think nothing of carrying on six or more online conversations simultaneously, a juggling act I, frankly, envy, even as I find myself questioning the point of it all. For every child predator emboldened by anonymity and easy access, there are many nice, natural, normal people who met online and are now in nice, natural, normal rela tionships.Much is made of the possibility of deception, especially concerning ones physical appearance: but as technology evolves into permitting online video and audio conversation in real time, this is rapidly becoming a moot point. .. in the process arguably eliminating the appeal of an online relationship for people like my younger self, who lacked self-confidence and had to win people with words alone. But no matter how far or how fast the Internet evolves, its important to remember: even though it has its sharp edges (or perhaps because it does), the Net is merely a tool.