The Internet Beneficial Or Fatal Essay, Research Paper

The Internet: Beneficial or Lethal

Almost everybody today owns a computer, or someone close to them does. Everyone has access to a computer. Of all these personal computers in the world right now, the majority of them are connected to the Internet. There are many different types of sites on the Internet: stores, chat rooms, personal home pages, personal pet pages, news pages, entertainment pages, sports pages, file pages, adult pages, etc. Everything that one could ever ask for is on the Internet, and a lot that one would not ask for. If there is any information one needs to find, they can find it on the Internet, but it is also just as easy to get lost, or swamped with irrelevant information. Sometimes, one must concentrate and ask, “Was the Internet truly a move towards better life, or was it a turn for the worse?”

The Internet has put a whole new twist on communication. One can send a letter to a friend and they will receive it within ten minutes. One can talk to people from all over the globe, without long distance charges, one can get information on any topic they choose, book reservations for a flight or dinner, purchase items from stereo systems to potato chips. It is endless to the variety of things that one used to have to put energy into which can now be done with a click of the mouse. A personal home page, which is a web site that is created for a certain individual can be produced by a beginner in five to ten minutes (assuming page is limited to basic features). Computers can be programmed to scan the net and automatically update software if newer versions become available. It would seem that the Internet is a marvelous resource, which has taken the world one step closer to the “Star Trek ideal”.

There is a second opinion. One that believes the Internet is one of the world’s biggest errors. If one can buy things online, one can use fake credit cards. On the same note, one can pretend to sell something, just to get credit card numbers. When one orders something online, they not only have to pay for the product, but they must pay for shipping and handling, which they could avoid had they gone to a local store. Prank calls and impersonations can easily be made with open access to names, addresses, and telephone numbers. Pornographic sites can be constructed just as easily as any other personal home pages can. One can write a fictional article on anything, publish it to the Internet, where someone else, looking for factual information on that topic will come across your article and mistake it for fact. And even despite all this, the Internet is so large, and growing so rapidly that it is extremely easy to get lost, and there is no map. So the Internet has potential for an excessive amount of danger.

All in all, it actually comes down to a personal decision. It is one’s own responsibility to “carry a compass and watch for booby traps”. The Internet is essentially like a major city. One has the good, safe parts of town, and one has the “wrong side of the tracks” parts of town. Everyone eventually goes to the bad side of town, either by accident, or by temptation, but one cannot make the bad side disappear. Wherever there is pro in life, there is always a con. The con may be hidden, but it is there. People just have to watch their steps.