Internet is the gigantic network which connects computers all over the world. It initially originated from military and scholastic industry. However, as personal computers were developed and distributed in 1980s, internet got developed dramatically. Especially the development of World Wide Web and web browsers helped public users easily use internet, which played the most important role in generalization of internet. It followed by that internet became the critical space for business, shopping, games, education and communication for everyone in the world. Data shows that number of Internet users in Korea to be over 34 million in the year of 2014. It means that the ratio of Internet users to the net population to be over 81.1%. Such record proves outstanding social power of internet on the society. Over the half of whole population in China, 6 billion people, spends average time of three hours a day on the net, New China News Agency report. The article explains the size and power of internet in numeric data. Internet brought a fundamental change into the ways to deliver and share information. News and issues get spread almost real time and they are being discussed globally through blogs, forum, and SNS. People replace offline gatherings with online meetings for their social relationship. However, there also is a voice which concerns that convenience of Internet destroys the quality of human life overall. Various research results report the critical conclusion that relationships in internet cut the possibility from positive meeting among real humans and they moreover lead such relationship to be distorted in negative direction. Of course there is a voice supporting the function and benefits of Internet in which it leads our lives to be better. Is internet truly an evil tool which hinders healthy development of our society?

 

Miniwatts Marketing Group, World Internet Usage and Population Statistics. 2011

Bradshaw, T. Social Media’s Role in Riots Probed

Bartlett, J and Miller, C. Truth, Lies and the Internet. A Report into Young People’s Digital Fluency

 

BBC News, Britons Spend Nearly ‘One Day a Month Online’, 19 may 2010

The Telegraph, Please Rob Me website causes fury for ‘telling burglars when Twitter users are not home’, 19 feb 2010

Slate.com, Springtime for Twitter, 18 jul 2011

 

a. Internet can be always distorted.
Internet is the most powerful space where one can acquire information these days. However, online information is full of unverified contents as well as newspaper, books, TV programs. Most of all, the existence of false information made up for the political purpose has been proved to be the biggest cause creating confusion within our society. Furthermore, once falsely released information cannot be ever rectified on the web, which is the most dangerous harm about the Internet.

b. Exposure of one’s private life cannot be stopped.
Everyone’s personal information is on the Internet. Regardless of its reasons behind it including unethical business deals or harmless collection, all of our information can be exposed to others. Not only information on our official information but our private life which we want hidden or uncovered also became publicized and even got distorted. After all, such weakness leads us to worry about creation of “Big Brother”, which has great potential to become the greatest harm of Internet.

 

a. Internet helps democracy to grow.
Internet is the most effective and most strong communication method through which everyone can reach. In the past, only a few limited people of class and position could practice political power, which caused many harmful cases where democracy got distorted and dictatorship ruled. However, Internet currently plays a role which monitors such dictatorship or concentration of one’s overrule. We should take time to think about why despotic states including North Korea control Internet so heavily.

b. Internet brings economic abundance and creative development.
Internet is the one and only source where economic exchanges can be made among every nation in the world. It proposes various opportunities and much potential for nations as well as individuals grow economically. In terms of work, such team projects can be effectively managed since there is no barrier in time or place. These benefits from internet development helped to lower the price of merchandises since maximization on efficiency brought revolution of economic system. In conclusion, the benefits of digital era helps quality of everyone’s life become higher and better.

 

The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember by Nicholas Carr

 

인터넷은 사회의 발전을 저해하는 도구인가

---