Impact of Internet on Culture

The advent of the Internet has been one of the most exciting major events in the second
half of the 20th century. The ancient dream of “a scholar knows all things happening in
the world without venturing outdoors” has finally become a reality. Since 1993, the
Internet started to take off. At present, the Internet has spread to more than 180 countries
and regions, connecting more than 600,000 domestic networks of various types, hooking
up more than 20 million computers available to 120 million users (2% of the entire global
population). Within the Internet are the information treasures shared by all human
civilizations.
The reason why the Internet seems all-powerful is because it has two characteristics no
other mechanisms possess: first, the Internet contains the biggest resource of information
in the entire world; second, it enables people to obtain an interactive mechanism to
instantly communicate with each other.
Once connected with the Internet, everyone can enjoy the unparalleled richness of global
information resources including textual, audio, graphic information. The information on
the Internet is so rich that no one can tell what is really out there. Furthermore, the
Internet information resources are constantly expanding at a great speed—one can only
make a rough estimate. The types of information on the Internet are also wide-ranging,
from scientific research, education, public policy, legal regulations to commerce, arts,
entertainment etc. to include everything. For all those connected with the Internet, they
can quickly put onto the Internet all they want announced or all they think others should
know about.
The Internet not only has an inexhaustible amount of information as vast as the ocean, but
also has its interactive mechanisms—net to net, net to people, and people to people
communications—that makes the Internet seem able to take on any task: entertainment,
interpersonal exchanges, education, health... [continues]

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