In today’s world, the Internet has been a remarkable tool for people of all ages to connect in a digital realm for many different reasons due to the fact that people spend more time online as a way to help improve their lives or to the point it can hurt them. Throughout the years, the Internet has been a powerful source for people to connect online throughout social media. However, it has the possibility to erode people’s personal lives and has even been known to cause depression. But I believe that the Internet is one of the greatest creations and gives everyone in the world instant access to an endless supply of knowledge and entertainment. Also, it gives us the advantage to explore the Internet’s ability to connect us all. Today, technology has gained a lot of benefits for helping us throughout our lives such as making friends, researching online, online shopping, and communication for relationships and friendships.
The Internet gives us a way to explore and build relationships in the online world. As social beings, we want the opportunity to be able to connect with people online. The Internet in particular is very effective in helping us out with connecting. From the article, “A Way to Explore and Build Relationships We Wouldn’t Otherwise Form”, Noa Slaney discusses how “as a child growing up in the United States with foreign parents, every summer we would visit my mother's family in Israel.” Nowadays, music, sports and culture have spread throughout the globe easily all because of the Internet. For example, global artists such as Shakira have spread all around Latin America. Black Friday sales became a global phenomenon due to the trend of online connections. This shows that it is clear that the Internet is having an impact on all these preferences. For example, for 18 to 24 year olds, also known as, “the heaviest social media users”, the digital realm is their top source of news (par. 3). For millenials, the Internet gives an impact on their voting behavior and it is the biggest influence on to give globally instead of locally (par. 3). But the Internet in all platforms can be used for positive and negative interactions. According to the U.S. presidential election, Slaney discusses that “many observers claim that social media has created ‘filter bubbles’ that reinforce our views as opposed to opening up to new ones” (par. 4). These digital connections might increase the ease in sharing certain parts ourselves and our views. In addition, we still need to think about if what we put online is worth protecting. Even though the world is become closely intertwined, it gives the opportunity for online activism to become a great influence globally.
Online activism has become a positive effect in the real world. The terms “Clicktivism” and “slacktivism” are negative terms for online activism. It suggests that these digital campaigns generate likes on Instagram. Many people argue that these campaigns promote participants with a sense of gratification that they’ve taken action instead of participating with the cause in a “real-world” perspective. According to Slaney’s article, “Online Activism Is Having a Positive Effect in the Real World,” she discusses that the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge attracted worldwide attention with leaders such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.” However, the collective action of celebrities and citizens can make a social pressure for others to captivate in a social activity, which can lead to psychological consequences (Csorba, par. 2). We should be aware of what these social campaigns encourage because they can be psychologically exhausting and in some cases very harmful. Although the campaign was criticized with simply raising awareness, it raised more than $115 million dollars with 2.2 million Twitter mentions and 2.4 million Facebook videos of people pouring buckets of ice water over their heads (par. 2). There are other online campaigns that overpowered real-life actions. Campaigns such as the United Nations Foundation inspired an online interest to create a continued focus on the Sustainable Development Goals. From creating compelling messages to easy sharing on social media, the foundation uses its +SocialGood community to spread the word and make goals relevant. This proves that our online interactions influence our offline behavior. While online activism has been influencing users on and offline, social media has become a key influence on younger users.
Social media is now becoming a key part of our lives from the trend of online connections. In her article, “Online Connections Can be Superficial, but the Examples of That Are Outliers,” Slaney discusses in her research of social media in 2004 that “the reigning narrative was that people who choose to interact online are considered ‘socially awkward’ and were looking for opportunities to connect in the digital realm” (par. 1) She also discussed that when she “studied teenagers when they used chat rooms, I saw that a generation of digital natives were as socially adjusted to their peers and looked to connect online in addition to real life” (par. 1). Even though there are negative consequences of a digital presence, many studies have proven that people who connect with others online are less likely to be socially isolated than their peers who don’t (par. 2). For example, online dating is the second most common way to meet someone. This particular subset of digital interaction has shown that couples who have met online have marriages that are just as strong as to meeting someone in real life. Social media has now become the number one activity for many young users all around the globe. These social media platforms imitate our real world behavior and broaden our perspective towards it. Slaney discusses that, “Twitter allows me to share my opinion on the issues I care about as much as I would at the dining room table” (par. 3). The key difference is that you have the opportunity to connect globally instead of locally all because of these social media platforms. Even though there are elements of social media that cause more harm than good such as fake news, the deeper connections online take place make up for the outlier examples.
In conclusion, the Internet proves that it has a positive influence on modern day generations and it strengthens more powerful societies all around the world. It also helps younger and older users to keeping them informed on local and global news and be able to have the opportunity to form opinions online and even from people around them. Technology has a lot of benefits for helping us throughout our lives such as making friends, researching any topics online, online shopping, and communicating long distance friendships or relationships without any effort. However, technology can hurt us throughout our lives such as cyberbullying and posting misleading information, which can lead to anxiety and depression. We can stop this by having the ability to be able to ban any form of harassment such as fake news and hateful comments on social media. On the positive side, the Internet is making a big impact on society with economic, social, and political changes around the globe. The popularity of social networks and social media websites are growing because societies around the world are becoming more developed, stronger, and more intelligent because most technologies are interlinked with the Internet. In addition to all the pros and cons of the Internet, I am impressed with the abilities the Internet is able to provide for us on a daily basis.