The impact of technology

The impact of technology
The internet has opened many doors of opportunities for people for example improving how people live, work, and socialize. I say new opportunities because if it wasn’t for the internet, we wouldn’t be able to contact someone as fast as sending an email versus sending a letter. You might be thinking, well years ago people didn’t need the internet to get things done! Sure that’s true but technology has advanced and for that we should take advantage of it and not view it as a negative advancement. The internet has had a positive impact in social media, education, and businesses.
“Jerry Brown approved a new law Monday giving young people the ability to remove embarrassing information they post on the internet social networking sites” (Mason and McGreevy). This new law helps protect young people’s privacy and it helps future people who want to work with politics. We’re in 2013, which means the government has ways to make the internet safer. Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, all this social networking sites provide privacy settings. When setting up an account you have the option of setting it private and then no one besides the people you choose can access your personal info. I read that 50% of our population is under the age of 30. Most likely more than half of these 50% have a social network site and most of them are teenagers. I’m not saying this is true but if it is, me being a teenager I say if we’re intelligent enough to make an account, than we’re intelligent enough to set our accounts private and not upload embarrassing information on the web.
The internet has had a huge impact in education. As a student I have noticed that the internet has been used a lot for education. Schools have computer classes that teach you so much about technology and one of them is how to use the internet. The teachers equip students with a new set of skills. The internet is also used in other ways for education, for example, each semester more and more students are taking classes online, teachers are integrating social media into their courses, and everyone is turning to the web to do their research. You don’t have to be a student to see the internet as a positive influence on education. The internet provides the opportunity for people anywhere in the world to access quality educational services from the comfort of their home, on their own schedule, and own pace. I grew up with parents who don’t read and write perfect English but the little English they know they’ve learned from reading the news on the web or watching the news. So you see how the internet has benefited people worldwide?
“61% of small business use social media to advertise” Businesses have noticed the value of social networks in our life, and they are using different techniques to promote their products. I find social media to be a very helpful source and by the looks of it I’m not the only one. Social media is also used to criticize certain products. Lots of people go on the web to post reviews on a certain product and/or read them and that’s what they base their choice on most of the time. Today, a business owner can achieve success with online communication, fewer employees and higher goals while making services more convenient for customers. For people looking for jobs you have job applications online and that can be very helpful for the employer and the person looking for a job.
“People are passively affected by technology, but actively shape its use and influence” (Fischer & Hans). We are the ones who put a label on the internet, we influence whether it’s negative or positive. The internet has been developing for a long period of time now which means it has a lot more entertainment and benefits and one of those is social media. The internet and social media have recently been and will continue to be a HUGE part of humanity. It’s not always going to be a negative or positive influence but a negative and positive one.