The Consequences of the Internet Essay

The Internet is a collection of electronic networks created and used by the global community of different people for the purpose of exchanging social information. Today, even the creators of the electronic web and active Internet users often poorly imagine and understand its boundaries, content, and degree of order. In recent years, the introduction of Internet technologies and services is developing fast. Consequently, the Internet and its development affects the lives of people around the world. Some believe that the Internet will be a blessing for the 21st century, while others argue that it only threatens the well-being of humanity. Indeed, there are many advantages and disadvantages of the Internet that will be discussed in this paper. The Internet is a good opportunity to exchange information, communicate with people all over the world, study and always be aware of the latest news. However, despite the fact that the Internet has been beneficial for many, its negative consequences may outweigh its benefits because it threatens the security of users, deliver a cultural intrusion, and allows the publication of absolutely any information that cannot be trusted.

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The Internet is fraught with new problems and risks associated with information security and data protection. The increase in information, the number of transactions and the global connection of mobile devices lead to the appearance of completely new sources of threats. The abundance of technological personal devices has long been turned into the target of hacker attacks. They obtain any device they are interested in, learn how it is protected, and then easily invent a way of hacking (Filkins et al., 2016). If they hack it, then the protection system cannot be updated quickly enough. As a result, there are serious problems of the Internet security level which means that people's houses, cars, and business become vulnerable to the threats of a new technological era (Filkins et al., 2016). According to Filkins et al. (2016), today's generation is witnessing new revolution which occurs due to the fast spread of the Internet. Therefore, in order to be able to get the advantages from the use of the Internet, people should understand that the number of threats aimed at devices connected to the network will constantly grow. According to McAlone (2015), even the director of the CIA himself is not protected from cyber-attack. As a result, in 2015 a teen hacker had gained access to former CIA director John Brennan's personal email and leaked confidential information (McAlone, 2015). Subsequently, users should update their security system and pay attention to the new issues of Internet security. The only correct approach that will eliminate the possibility of taking advantage of vulnerabilities for embedded devices is the use of secure operating systems. However, they are not enough to avoid the problem completely. Using the Internet, people are always at risk to be subjected to the cyber-attack.

In addition, it should be noted that the human factor remains the most important threat to Internet security. A large amount of information sent through the world's web attracts the attention of hackers (Fotinger and Ziegler, 2006). For example, unauthorized access to the management system of a particular enterprise can have quite dangerous consequences. Therefore, the introduction of operating systems with integrated security tools allows creating an environment where "holes" are detected and an attacker cannot use them (Fotinger and Ziegler, 2006). Moreover, cyber-sphere is becoming a field of political and economic conflicts. People have the opportunity to interfere in political affairs, debate and create various petitions. Politicians, in turn, publish posts on Twitter influencing a fairly large audience. This can lead not only to the positive interaction of people and politicians but also to economic and political conflicts. Also, the hostility in the cyber-sphere has transferred from demonstrating technological superiority to directed action (Fotinger and Ziegler, 2006). More often, global corporations, business structures, individual bank accounts become the target of hackers (Fotinger and Ziegler, 2006). Consequently, it is important to predict where threats are expected and how serious the challenges are. In order to stay safe, companies and regular users need to think about possible security strategies on the Internet, but be always aware of the fact that they are always at risk to become the victims of hackers.

On the other hand, the Internet represents a significant cultural invasion by advocating Western lifestyles. Virtual propaganda on the Internet is a manipulative activity on a global scale in the popularization and spreading of ideas in the mass consciousness (Fuchs, 2014). It is always aimed at shaping public opinion and performs the functions of virtual communication and modeling of social existence compared with reality. It means that the information published in the Internet has a big influence on the opinion of different people all over the world and this influence is not always positive. Virtual propaganda of Western cultural life on the Internet becomes a powerful manipulative tool of influence in promoting human interests and preferences (Fuchs, 2014). Moreover, virtual propaganda is the most manipulative phenomenon of artificial virtual reality. It reflects the essence of the processes that take place in the changing of modern society and is closely connected with virtual myth making. Internet propaganda of Western lifestyle as a cultural invasion carries out a global popularization and spreading of ideas in the mass consciousness (Fuchs, 2014). For example, today politicians have the opportunity to influence the perception of the political system by people. In addition, on the Internet there is a huge number of bloggers who promote this or that lifestyle and the greatest number of them is in the West. As a result, people may begin to imitate the lifestyle that is unacceptable for their culture. Many researchers believe that it is easier to carry out propaganda activities with people whose behavior in the virtual space of the Internet is typical and stereotyped (Fuchs, 2014). Hence, virtual propaganda is presented and constructed in the form of social stereotypes - standards of behavior, virtual myths, and political illusions. And it does not concern only Western civilization, it applies to absolutely all people around the world. Almost each individual can impose one's way of life so that other people will follow it. Thus, like virtual myths, the Internet community is always focused on shaping public opinion and actively performs the functions of virtual communication and modeling of social society.

Moreover, anyone can put any information onto the Internet and say it is based on a study, thereby, misleading users, which indicates that there is a huge amount of information on the Internet that cannot be trusted. Especially false information affects adolescents, who believe almost everything published on the Internet because they are not mature enough to analyze the given information and make correct conclusions (Ingram, 2016). As children enter a rich information space, they should be taught to analyze information and notice manipulative messages. Because of their age, they do not know how to do this and are ready to accept fake news as reliable. This is confirmed by a study by Stanford University on the level of confidence of adolescents to content on the Internet (Ingram, 2016). The results have showed that usually, many young people do not pay attention to the source of information and do not distinguish between advertising and paid posts (Ingram, 2016). The majority of high school students easily identify traditional advertising, for example, banner ads but they do not recognize the persuasive advertising created in the form of a story or reportage from the event (Ingram, 2016). Also, senior students showed excessive naivety. It turned out that most of the information presented in the form of news was perceived uncritically and trusted by them (Ingram, 2016). Photos of evolved flowers that supposedly grew after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima were fake and taken from a photo shoot. However, many participants in the study did not have doubts about the accuracy of the information (Ingram, 2016). They did not even ask about its source. Less than 20% of respondents thought about confirming the photo, and almost 40% said that this news is absolutely reliable because it includes a photographic proof of the radiation level near Fukushima (Ingram, 2016). In addition, it was revealed that college students do not notice the manipulation of tweets designed in the style of authentic news with the addition of statistics (Ingram, 2016). Students should inquire from where these statistics come from, what studies were conducted and why a particular organization might be interested in covering exactly this information. This was done by less than a third of the respondents, while the rest began to discuss the news itself and did not verify its credibility (Ingram, 2016). Furthermore, the majority of students evaluated the information without clicking on the message and not even trying to follow the link to the primary source (Ingram, 2016). Thus, fake information on the Internet has a very negative effect on the consciousness of the younger generation, which once again proves that the Internet can become a threat and not a blessing of the 21st century.

Nevertheless, there are also advantages of using the Internet. For example, the Internet is a place for entertainment and communication with people around the world. The Internet is the best mean of communication because every day, new innovations make it even more comfortable. Today, people can start real-time communication with a person who is in another country and even continent. For more detailed private and collaborative communication, they can use various video tools and chat. Due to such services, geographically disjointed nations are able to share their opinions on global problems that have a big impact on individuals (Samovar et al., 2016). The Internet has provided people a chance to discover different cultures, traditions and ideologies throughout the world.

In addition, one of the main reasons why people actively use the Internet is the entertainment tools, which are available online. Indeed, the Internet is so popular primarily because of its entertainment industry, which provides an access to different online activities such as Gaming, Youtube, 360 videos and VR, and Music. Also, due to the Internet people can find the newest information about famous personalities and watch different interesting websites (Stuczynski, 2014). Also, there are countless games that can be downloaded by people (Stuczynski, 2014). In fact, online games have gained phenomenal success, and are enjoying growing demand all over the world.

Moreover, the Internet is a treasure trove of information as it contains knowledge of any topic. Search engines make information available and it has become a common practice to seek help from the Internet in solving different problems and finding answers (Naughton, 2010). On the Internet, people can also find news about the latest advances in medicine, technology and other fields of science (Naughton, 2010). Therefore, the advantages of the Internet in the field of communication, entertainment, and self-development are significant enough that makes Internet users believe that it is a blessing of the 21st century. However, as it has been already mentioned above, people have to check all the information published in the Internet as they can face with false news and believe it. Once again, using the Internet, people have to be careful and pay attention to the publ...