Is the Internet – a Blessing or a Bane? Discuss

Is the Internet – a blessing or a bane? Discuss

In this current era, internet plays a very important role in our society. Yet what is internet? Internet can be defined as a tool that able to link together all the people around the world, or we can also say that internet is a global network connecting millions of computers from different countries all over the world. Furthermore, in this high-tech society, the computer is no longer an advocate of the internet; we can also surf internet by using mobile phone as well. In addition, we can found the internet access point at almost all the places such as in shopping malls, Starbucks Cafe, KFC Restaurant and etc. Internet is a great assistant in our life; it creates a lot of convenience for us and helps us to save up a lot time and cost.
In the light of an investigation report on the internet usage stats in Malaysia, the users of internet has increased from 0.15% of population in the year 1995 to 64.6% of population in the year 2010. The report stated that people depend on internet are increasing with each passing day. Additionally, according to Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, the General Manager of Strategic Development Division of Telekom Malaysia (TM) Bhd, the number of internet users in Malaysia is estimated to arrive at the 10 million mark in the future five years (Internet World Stats, 2012). Consequently, the internet is already deep-rooted in almost everyone’s life and it is an indispensable tool in current society. But, is the internet – a blessing or bane? There are always two sides of a coin, in which internet can be bane and boon at the same time. It can benefit people yet if people misuse the internet, it can also destroy people.
Foremost in focus, internet makes our life easier. According to Bodden, V (2008), some people called the internet as the “information superhighway”, owing to the fact that it assists people in searching and getting information easily and faster. In the past, it is compulsory for students to spend long hours in libraries to look for information that they needed. However, with the growth of popularity of internet, a search engine such as Google or Yahoo! can do the job well. For instance, the students just need to type in the key words on the search engine, a list of desired piece of information will immediately appeared. There are tons and tons of information in the internet as compared to the libraries. Apart from that, using the internet to search for the information is considered as a cheaper way and a more efficiency way than flipping through books. Due to the fact that searching information through internet is effectively and saves a lot of time.
Moreover, trading through the internet has also blossomed as of its advantages. People can buy and sell goods online as if they are purchasing directly from a shop (James, K.L, 2010). In this regard, shopping becomes a simple matter which people just need to click on the button while sitting at home or office; they are no longer need to drive a long way to the shopping complex, wasting time to search for a car parking slot and walk around in the shopping complex to find the thing that they wanted to buy. Normally a shopping takes at least two hours yet online shopping only takes about 30 minutes. It helps to save a lot of time.
Furthermore, almost all the major companies have registered their own company website and advertisements on the internet so that people can easily access the information of the company and its products. For example, students can access to SEGI University College’s website in order to understand what the rating of the college is and what courses are provided before making decision on where to proceed their studies (SEGI University College, 2012). Also, people can even book and purchase airline tickets online; paying bills online, as well as the rising of online banking system has also brought a lot of convenience to people. It is easier for consumers to check their accounts and move money from one account to the other, the more likely they are to do these stuffs and keep up a more structured financial life (Investopedia.com, 2011). In this bustling society, queuing up for an airline ticket or banking is a waste of time thus internet provides people a lot of convenience and helps people to save a lot of time.
Besides that, Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder has also contributed a lot for the internet world. He has converted the world into a global village which means there is no hindered on the communication globally. Through Facebook, we can chat with friends from other countries just like chatting with our next door neighbours. Also, by using webcam we can even see what our friend is doing on the other side of the computer. However, before Facebook was found, there are also similar social networking sites such as Friendster, MSN, ICQ and so on. These kind of social networking sites have helped create and establish a great social contact among friends. Apart from that, people can transfer data, exchange of information and share documents through email. In this current era, emailing has replaced the paper letter that we ever used in the past. Email is more convenience and faster on sending and receiving compared to the paper letter. Furthermore, we can save paper and cost by using emailing all the time.
In contrast, the bane side of internet lies in its. The most common problem is that people nowadays overly rely on the convenience of internet and leading to laziness. For example, if a student needs to research information for his or her assignment, they will simply access to the pertinent website then copy and paste the information from the webpage to their assignment. Due to the fact that they rarely paying attention to the contents that is written and this might lead to lack of understanding the contents that is written. Besides that, the creativity will decrease if people are too relying on the internet. Furthermore, many organizations believe that the computers can replace human works thus lead to unemployment yet when computers cannot be used such as system breakdown, or internet is inaccessible, a lot of problems will arise (Blurtit.com, 2012).
Apart from that, the personal information in Facebook may be hacked and exploited by hacker. The hacker may exploit the information and photos as the advertisement at the adult website. Hence, it will lead to unnecessary harassment to the Facebook user. Besides that, some people may spread the bad rumors about someone they dislike through internet and causes trouble for him or her. For instance, news on 29th March 2012, a 13-year-old girl from the Dutch Town has committed suicide because of the rumors spreading around on the internet by her classmates that she was in a list of “sexually promiscuous” girls; this is a great shame to a young teen. In fact, this is an avoidable incident if the internet is used properly (RNW, 2012).
An additional, internet is addictive. The author of an editorial for the American Journal of Psychiatry, Dr Jerald Block emerges that addiction to internet is an illness (The Guardian, 2008). According to Dr Jerald Block, those people who are addicted to internet will feel strained and angry when the internet is inaccessible. Besides that, those who often locked themselves in the internet world will lead to social isolation and affects their general social life. Furthermore, surfing internet excessively can also lead to health problems. For instance, when we are using computers, our body is always in one same posture and our eyes are always starring at the screen. This situation might maintain for a long hours of time. Consequently, this may lead to the decreased of vision, eye pain, photophobia, neck pain and dizziness (Hudong.com, 2011). Another bane side of internet is that the easy accessibility to internet enables individuals including those that are underage to surf into pornography websites. These pornography websites always take advantages of the curiosity of young children in order to attract them to surf into the website. Young children that hit puberty will start to feel curious about sex and some of them will explore it by surfing into pornography websites. In this regard, it will lead to the corruptions of physical and mental health problem of young children. Additionally, according to a survey conducted in recent years, the quality and quantity of the staffs from an organization that their internet accessibility is unrestricted has declined, but the irregularities increased. Owing to the fact that the findings stated that the main reason is because the staffs viewed the pornographic websites at working hours, this is the main reason why the quality and quantity of the staffs will declined (Yang, P, 2004). In a nutshell, the internet is a double-edged sword, in which it can be blessing and bane at the same time. Owing to the fact that it can supply us a lot of convenience and make our life easier but if we are addicted to the internet or misuses the internet, it can also ruined our life. However, as long as we know how to control ourselves, able to allocate time for surfing internet and make good use of the internet, the internet will be a good helper of our lives.
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List of References
Blurtit.com (2012), What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of A Computer? [online]. Available at: http://www.blurtit.com/q862605.html [Viewed 12 July 2012].
Bodden, V (2008), Internet. Illustrated ed. , The Creative Company, Mankato.
Hudong.com (2011), The Pros and Cons of the Network, [online]. Available at: http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E7%9A%84%E5%88%A9%E4%B8%8E%E5%BC%8A [Viewed 12 July 2012].
Internet World Stats (2012), Malaysia Internet Usage and Marketing Report, [online]. Available at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/my.htm [Viewed 12 July 2012].
Investopedia.com (2011), The Pros And Cons Of Internet Banks, [online]. Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/11/benefits-and-drawbacks-of-internet-banks.asp#axzz20QYqMy2F [Viewed 12 July 2012].
James, K.L (2010), THE INTERNET: A User’s Guide. 2nd ed. , PHI Learning Private Limited, New Delhi.
RNW (2012), Dutch girl commits suicide over ‘banga list’, [online]. Available at: http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/dutch-girl-commits-suicide-over-%E2%80%98banga-list%E2%80%99 [Viewed 12 July 2012].
SEGI University College (2012), SEGI University College, [online]. Available at: http://www.segi.edu.my/ [Viewed 12 July 2012].
The Guardian (2008), Addiction to internet ‘is an illness’, [online]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/23/news.internet [Viewed 12 July 2012].
Yang, P (2004), The Pros and Cons of the Internet, [online]. Available at: http://www.xltk.cn/Article/2004/200401/269.html [Viewed 12 July 2012].

References: Blurtit.com (2012), What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of A Computer? [online]. Available at: http://www.blurtit.com/q862605.html [Viewed 12 July 2012]. Bodden, V (2008), Internet. Illustrated ed. , The Creative Company, Mankato. Hudong.com (2011), The Pros and Cons of the Network, [online]. Available at: http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E7%9A%84%E5%88%A9%E4%B8%8E%E5%BC%8A [Viewed 12 July 2012]. Internet World Stats (2012), Malaysia Internet Usage and Marketing Report, [online]. Available at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/my.htm [Viewed 12 July 2012]. Investopedia.com (2011), The Pros And Cons Of Internet Banks, [online]. Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/11/benefits-and-drawbacks-of-internet-banks.asp#axzz20QYqMy2F [Viewed 12 July 2012]. James, K.L (2010), THE INTERNET: A User’s Guide. 2nd ed. , PHI Learning Private Limited, New Delhi. RNW (2012), Dutch girl commits suicide over ‘banga list’, [online]. Available at: http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/dutch-girl-commits-suicide-over-%E2%80%98banga-list%E2%80%99 [Viewed 12 July 2012]. SEGI University College (2012), SEGI University College, [online]. Available at: http://www.segi.edu.my/ [Viewed 12 July 2012]. The Guardian (2008), Addiction to internet ‘is an illness’, [online]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/23/news.internet [Viewed 12 July 2012]. Yang, P (2004), The Pros and Cons of the Internet, [online]. Available at: http://www.xltk.cn/Article/2004/200401/269.html [Viewed 12 July 2012].