At first, the internet was used as a database of information shared all over the world and as a simple communication tool opened to the whole world. Slowly but indefinitely though, negative issues arouse about its safety and the freedom it provides to the society. Hence, the Internet can be termed as a negative influence because it encourages unhealthy social behaviours, divides nations, and allows unethical usage.
Internet advancements suggested that there are no boundaries to what you can do in an online environment. Though there are boundaries now (online laws), yet, many still seek ways to cross them. As such, Flew (2005) suggested that the internet has given the opportunity for one to play, create deception of, and adopt many other personas. Subsequently, there are people who try to pose as other people to gain some sort of advantage and others just to have fun. Having an impostor in the system can build negative issues. Jordan (cited in Flew 2005) wrote about a girl who chose to have gay male sex online in South Miami Beach, Florida, USA (where the gay community was large) just for kicks. Besides that, there were many cases of rather “fake” medical specialists causing their mentally or physically ill patients more traumatized (Jordan 1999). This virtual environment is unhealthy for the social well-being of humans.
The Internet is the largest source of information and news. On the other hand, it is also the largest source for explicit media. For example, there is, pornography. In this case, the most unethical use of the Internet is the spread of child pornography. Any images, video of a child’s body or child portraying sexual acts is child pornography (Ost 2002). “Extreme hardcore child pornography may include images of the infliction of sadistic, physical harm to the child and occasionally, may even end in the child’s death,” Pierce (quoted in Ost 2002). Not only that, the spread of pornography through the easily accessible Internet, is also highly unethical itself. This is because the Internet is open to the whole public; young and old. Especially for the youngsters, pornography is no doubt a bad influence.
Many argue that the Internet is a stepping stone to globalisation. However, the Internet has become more of a divider of nations. This is because ICT technologies take longer time to be transferred to other parts of the world. The technology of computers and the rapid advancements of the internet have played the biggest part in dividing the world while many others think that it is the first step towards globalisation or a world without borders. This is called the Digital Divide; where digital mass media creates inequalities of access to different Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that is cause by social, economical and geographical inequalities (Flew 2005). The most tremendous digital divide is between the First World economies and lesser economies (Flew 2005). As proof; “A North American child is 19.5 times more likely to have internet access than a child from the Asia Pacific, 28.5 times more likely to have internet access than a child from Latin America, and 195 times more likely to have internet access than a child from Africa” (Flew 2005). These statistics were taken several years ago but this tells us a bit about how divided the world was at that time. As the internet and computers being one of the fastest growing technologies, it can be deduced that slower countries will have too much catching up to do -compared to those countries that allow faster logistics or technology transfers and at the same time have the infrastructural capability and compatibility to install such technologies-. As a result, divides the world further.
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