With the introduction of the World Wide Web (www), the internet has greatly evolved since its creation. Nowadays, people spend a high amount of their time on the internet for various reasons such as; communicating with other people either for social, economic and/or political purposes and more. Nevertheless, it has both positive and negative effects on humans by either influencing the way they live or think. According to a BBC documentary - THE VIRTUAL REVOLUTION-Homo Interneticus – the author Dr Aleks Krotoski revealed some arguments on the consequences of the web on people and its effect on relationships, lifestyle and more.

The documentary brings out three key points which are; the addiction to the internet by its users, the effects on relationships with the rest of the world (anti-socialization) and invasion of privacy.
Firstly, it has become a norm to use the internet in our everyday lives and activities given that it is the new centre of source of information. Be it in schools, organizations and/or homes, the internet is a mandatory tool for most of its users. Children today are exposed to the internet at a very tender age. Most of the things they are taught are related to the internet one way or the other. In this case, it has become an indispensable tool for their education. In the documentary, it is argued that children’s exposure to the internet at a very tender age creates an addiction. The number of hours they spend on the internet is sometimes outrageous. For example, 62% of children in the age range of 3-5 years in South Korea actually spend up to 8 hours on the internet compared to those of the same range in Britain. But, looking at the great importance of the internet in these children’s education and the fact that it has become a vital tool in all they do, be it at home or in schools it cannot be really considered as an addiction especially because of the way education is changing today. Also, not limiting to children, the internet being the new source of information and service provider everyone tends to rely on it for all they do (communication, purchases, research, etc) and possibly spending long hours when browsing.
Secondly, in terms of privacy, the documentary expresses its thoughts about privacy invasion by the providers. For example, with social networks like face book, hi5 and my space where membership is free, people can create personal profiles and put in all sorts of information about them, their life, profession, education and more for, their friends and maybe other people to view. Companies which promote their businesses online often send messages to these users promoting themselves and some times bombarding them with different deals and offers. In this case, the breach of confidentiality (mentioned when signing up) occurs and privacy is out of question. Face book at some point in time brought in the ‘news feed page’ where friends of friends or everyone could see updates on recent or new profile activities, hence limiting the degree of privacy on each individual’s profile. This is same for search engines like google maps which show specific locations of addresses up to the extent of pictures of the houses and streets. Nevertheless, it cannot be really assumed that there is privacy invasion with the internet per say. Taking again the case of social networks, privacy can only be invaded depending on the information the user puts on his or her profile. Hence, if the user is out to let the world know about their life by filling up their profile with much information, then yes, there will be no privacy. If the opposite is done, then users could keep their privacy. In other words, privacy is invaded depending on how much information is available to the public.

Lastly, the absorptiveness of the internet by its users could lead to anti-socialization in some cases. Back to the documentary where some parents complained about their children not paying much attention to them or bonding with them (like children and parent should) because they are always browsing was quite worrying. Face book has permitted many people to keep in touch, has helped to find old or lost friends and make new friends. In this sense, people keep track of each other and are aware of what is new through the news feed ( the digital loop of information to keep track of what people do) it created. Although this is a positive aspect and initiative, there are just some things the internet cannot really bring down such as social bonding which is more intense when you get to meet people face to face and building personalized relationships based on reality compared to the net which focuses on virtual relationships. With this argument, it is agreed that though the internet plays a good role in putting people back in touch, it limits itself to virtual relationships, different from the real ones.

In conclusion, yes the internet can be a burden all depending on how users adapt to it and make it as part of their daily activities, but on the other hand with the high dependency on the internet for almost everything, it remains a vital tool in our daily lives.

REFERENCE
BBC (2010) “the virtual revolution 4: Homo interneticus” [online] available from http://bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution [25th February 2010]