Rakshan Patnaik Week 11 - The Power of the Internet in Today’s Society
Rakshan Patnaik
Week 11
The Power of the Internet in Today’s Society
This is my second attempt writing this week’s blog post, right after I found out my previous attempt got deleted. The one time I write on Blogger.com directly, instead of Google Docs, Blogger glitches and does not save my work. But this got me thinking.
As work, trade, and education move and depend further and further online, the importance of online applications and the success of them increasingly affect the outcomes of these aforementioned things. In my case, rather than hand-writing, we have to type our blogs on Blogger. It has been happening frequently in the case of Blog comments, where the website glitches and does not save/submit what I wrote. This is the first time it happened, deleting a significant chunk of writing, thus wasting all the time I spent writing.
This is just one example of the increasing power of the internet and technology in all aspects of society. We have to question whether this is a better thing than prior ways because of the internet’s qualities of being corruptible, hackable, and inconsistent. Yes, the internet makes living easier and various transactions much smoother. But does it make us more vulnerable as well? With almost everything (work, private emails, assignments) taking place in online settings, the possibility of everything being lost increases exponentially.
Source: https://orientalreview.org/2020/04/30/the-power-of-the-internet-in-politics/
The warnings of cybersafety become ever more important, but it is funny how regardless of the internet’s fragility, there is still immense trust by multinational companies and the common man alike. Obviously, multinational companies have the money and resources to avoid these sorts of breaches and online failures, but for the common man, is it really taken into consideration?
Another minor aspect of internet dependency is stress. This section of my blog is honestly just a rant on previous experiences, but I feel the introduction of the internet and educational websites have increased stress (I’m looking at you, turnitin.com). I remember freaking out when submitting an English assignment back in 9th grade, because I was submitting it a few minutes before the deadline and my WiFi just decided to not work. If the assignment was handwritten, then this “freaking out” would not have happened.
Now, I’m obviously looking at the power of the internet with the glass half-empty. The internet has so many positives and has benefitted the lives of many people. Also, if a certain teacher is reading this, I do not want it to sound like I don’t like the online assignments--I very much do. However, in general, I still pose this question of whether we are letting the power of the internet grow too much. It is an important thought and something everyone should keep in mind when considering cybersecurity and safety. But you could just say I’m salty about needing to write a blog again. What are your thoughts?
It has always been my worst nightmare to have my computer and the internet fail on me when I need it for an important assignment. Especially with online school last year, it was extremely difficult to rely solely on the power of technology in order to effectively communicate and turn in assignments for school. Whether I had a good day at school or not last year depended greatly upon how the internet and my computer was working that day, which is why I relate to your frustration greatly. I think going back to pen and paper because the internet can be unreliable is a bit dramatic, but I do think having a back-up power source or device at all times is something that needs to be more common.
ReplyDeleteHi Rakshan, I completely agree that the internet is now an essential resource and if it fails the whole world will be dysfunctional. Recently I watched a TV show called Mr.Robot where the main character completed a data breach stole important passwords of a corrupt company and framed a vice president for doing so. I think it is especially important to have strong passwords for web applications but honestly, it is so hard to remember all the passwords. Luckily nowadays there are options for 2 or 3 figure authentication verification from stopping hackers from stealing important information. Hopefully, in the future better technology comes out to limit these hacks from hurting independent users.
ReplyDeleteHello Rakshan,
ReplyDeleteMy blood pressure rose hearing that your first blog got deleted. Thank you for taking the time to write another one, even though your hard work was thrown off a ten-story building. I appreciate you expressing the various perspectives you have about the internet. A lot of controversial concepts seem to resemble a scale where you want to see it perfectly balanced but often see one side tipped over with bias. Whether the internet holds too much power depends on how deeply we integrate it into our lives. During the pandemic, lives certainly revolved around the computer screen. We have reached a time where even young children need to be taught how the internet works and the importance of using it safely.
Our society is extremely dependent on the Internet, but if you looked at us even a decade ago, it would have been nothing like this. As technology is rapidly evolving, our dependence is rapidly growing. From education, leisure, recreation, and work: all of what we do are slowly becoming more Internet-dependent, and things like losing your work cannot be avoided. Developers have immense power and influence, even more than kings of the past, so the hope is that developers continue to innovate to help society more.
ReplyDeleteHey Rakshan, I have definitely shared your fear and your resentment towards the increased prevalence and importance of the Internet in recent years. With the significant increases in ease that the Internet and all its varied functionality provides us, it becomes that much more detrimental to contemplate a failure in the Internet and how quickly so much information and time can disappear. The power of the Internet also equates to those in charge of the biggest aspects of the Internet also having an unimaginable amount of power. This immense power lying in the hands of only a few companies is somewhat disconcerting as the general public has to trust these few people and corporations to uphold the quality and integrity of such a crucial aspect of modern society.
ReplyDeleteHi Rakshan! We have definitely dramatically increased our time on the internet over these past few years. Much of what we do in school requires some sort of electronic device. Back in elementary school, I never imagined computers to play such a large role in my learning, and rather viewed it as a fancy and luxurious alternative to handwriting that would be used occasionally. Of course, our time spent on social media has also increased, perhaps for the worst. Cybersecurity and safety has decreased. Many of us lack privacy with apps such as Facebook and even Google.
ReplyDeleteHi Rakshan! I must say I don't even know how many times my work was been deleted due to the internet or the website crashing. The frustration I feel after each of these occurrences is also indescribable. Hence I never use digital calendars or take digital notes (crossing things off of my agenda is just really satisfying too). Though I do find writing things down to be easier to access and also more beneficial to my memory.
ReplyDeleteHi Rakshan, you make interesting observations. Assignments are quite important, but imagine if someone’s life savings were at risk, all because of technology. For example, if a bank told all of its customers to send their account information by midnight on a certain date, in order to be able to withdraw all of their savings and have them moved to another bank, a glitch at 11:59pm could have the power to completely eradicate all of the money. Hopefully, society never becomes so dependent on technology that human beings have to give up all of their freedom and power.
ReplyDeleteHi Rakshan! Honestly, you make very good points here. The internet is quite important to us as it is where we get a lot of our work done and it's where we spend the most time of our day on. Stress though is a very interesting aspect I never imagined getting from the internet. The times I have to wait for my computer to reload the doc because the internet is slow and the times my work gets deleted completely due to the poor internet I used gets stressful. But honestly, there are so many risker things you just can't afford to lose due to the internet that can be potentially lost. It's scary and nerve wrecking to type sometimes when the internet is slow. These were some great aspects you discussed.
ReplyDelete