ITAB TERM PAPER

THE INTERNET BEYOND HUMAN CONTROL

CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION

 OBJECTIVE

 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INTERNET

 SOCIAL NETWORK AGE DISTRIBUTION

 AGE DISTRIBUTION ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES

  ON THE SOCIAL WEB, AGE IS A FACTOR

 EMPLOYEES AT WORK

 INTERNET SCAMS

 HOW WOMEN AND MEN USE THE INTERNET

 THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

 CONCLUSION

 BIBILIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

It may not be easy to define the Internet because it has different meanings to different
people. It has many advantages and, like the two sides of a coin, can have its
disadvantages, as well. Through the Internet, we have broken all barriers of
communication, information, and gathering and assimilating knowledge. It is quite a
potent tool and has completely changed the way we interact with each other. As a matter
of fact, teenagers these days know of no other way of communicating and interacting
with their peers.

Communication is instant and convenient, making life quite comfortable. Most people
use the Internet for communicating through emails, the most inexpensive way of
communicating with your loved ones. No wonder the Internet is known as the
“communication superhighway. Other than its use for communication, the Internet is a
great database of information that helps people in their research. Through this incredible
tool, you can find out whatever information you wish to. The Internet is versatile,
interactive, accessible, globally reachable and immediate.

OBJECTIVE:

The Internet has become one of the biggest information sources in the world today, which
provides variety of opportunities that satisfy the needs of more than 1.7 billion current
Internet users. World Internet users increase every year and there will be an even greater
demand for this market in future. How impressive the internet may appear, it is, in certain
respects, just the latest of many aids which, over millennia, have evolved to aid human
interaction. The internet is quantitatively and qualitatively different from all earlier
human experience.

But now it seems “internet” is acting on its own and becoming master of human
beings. This study has been made to understand present and predict future and also ill
effect of internet and how it has changed lives of people.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INTERNET

Advantages:

Other than individuals who use the Internet basically for communication, businesses have
many other uses for this powerful tool. For instance, they use it for promoting their
services and products. This method has clearly overtaken the traditional way of
advertising their products and services through print media. They use emails to send
information on the services and products they offer. Their websites are more interactive
than ever before, and e-commerce is the way of life for most.

Some of the advantages of Internet communication:

• Instant communication through emails.

• Source of a vast amount of information on any and all topics. A very useful
research tool.
• For businesses, a great marketing tool that is accessible 24/7/365.
• Online banking, hotel and airline reservations.
• A great way to do business through e-commerce.
• Internet telephony has made it possible to communicate verbally through the
medium of the Internet.
• Conferences can be held by multiple participants, irrespective of the distances
involved. This has been made possible through videoconferencing, where audio
data as well as video images can be transmitted.

Disadvantages:

There are disadvantages too, but in no way can these overshadow its advantages. Along
with instant communication through emails, we also receive junk mail and spam.

• Attack by viruses is a downside to the Internet.

• Unsolicited ads and spam invade our lives.
• Misuse of credit card information.

SOCIAL NETWORK AGE DISTRIBUTION

What is the age distribution in the social media sphere?

We took the age distribution data we had collected and calculated what the age
distribution looked like across all social networking sites counted together. The resulting
chart is right here below:

A full 25% of the users on these sites are aged 35 to 44, which in other words is the age
group that dominates the social media sphere. Only 3% are aged 65 or older.

AGE DISTRIBUTION ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES

Some observations on age distribution:

• Bebo appeals to a much younger audience than the other sites with 44% of its
users being aged 17 or less. For MySpace, this number is also large; 33%.
• Classmates.com has the largest share of users being aged 65 or more, 8%, and
78% are 35 or older.
• 64% of Twitter users are aged 35 or older.
• 61% of Facebook users are aged 35 or older.

ON THE SOCIAL WEB, AGE IS A FACTOR

At the moment the older generations are for one reason or other not using social
networking sites to a large extent. This probably reflects general internet usage, but we
suspect the difference is enhanced when it comes to the social media sphere where site
usage tends to be more frequent and time-consuming than usual. It is also noteworthy that
social media isn’t dominated by the youngest, often most tech-savvy generations, but
rather by what has to be referred to as middle-aged people (although at the younger end
of that spectrum).

EMPLOYEES AT WORK

According to study surveys, the average employee spends between one and two hours
each day using the Internet for personal reasons. Use ranges widely from accessing
pornographic and gambling sites to playing games and instant messaging friends and co-
workers. People also reported using the Internet at work to perform more innocent, but
still personal, tasks such as shopping and banking. The reasoning that many give for
using the Internet at work ranges from lack of access at home or having a faster
connection at work to accessing the Internet as a result of boredom.

Whatever the reasoning and whatever the task, employers are less than pleased when
their employees waste company time and money to do non-work related tasks online.
Most people would feel the same way if they were a business owner, but business values
aside, sometimes the temptation to surf is too great to resist. As a result, a vast number of
employers have turned to surveillance technology to monitor their employees’ Internet
usage at work.

INTERNET SCAMS
When people surf the web, one of the things that they find themselves being most
concerned about are Internet scams. Just about every time you search the Internet, you
encounter an Internet scam.

1. Probably the oldest Internet scam there is took place in the form of pop-ups. The
Internet scam is a tactic to get your personal information. The pop-up window appears
on your screen, usually with an item that is similar to your recent search, and claims that
you have been selected the lucky winner, and that you are going to win the prize
displayed in the pop-up. The Internet scam goes on to collect your personal information,
including name, street address, e-mail address, phone number, etc… Most times you will
find that the prize never gets delivered to you. Instead, you find out that you are the
victim of an Internet scam, and the scam artist just requested your information so that
they can solicit you with advertisements. Some victims find that not only did that scam
artist take their information to solicit them, they have sold the list to other parties, and it
constantly gets passed around.

2. Another Internet scams is a tactic to steal your identity. This Internet scam is one of
the most popular today. It is probably one of the Internet scams that is growing the most
rapidly today. One of the reasons is because this Internet scam has a tendency to disguise
itself in different ways. The most common way that people fall victim to this Internet
scam is by making an online purchase. The Internet scam is so disguised that people
believe that they are purchasing from a legitimate website, when it is only a ploy to get
their information. Internet scams such as these are after your information so that they can
create accounts in your name. An additional goal of these types of Internet scams is to
make off with your credit card information and continuously add charges to your account
when they think that you may not be aware.

HOW WOMEN AND MEN USE THE INTERNET

Percent Percent
Men are more likely than women to do these
activities online Online men Online women
Get news 77% 66%
Buy travel services or make reservation 60 51
Check sports scores and information 59 27
Get political news 57 42
Participate in online auction 28 18
Create content for the internet 25 16
Download music files 18 11
Buy/sell stocks, bonds, mutual funds 16 9
Women are more likely than men to do these
activities online Online women Online men
Get health information 85 75
Get spiritual and religious information 73 56
Use support-group Web sites 63 46
Online whites are more likely than minorities
to do these activities Online whites Online minorities
Buy a product 63 53
Participate in online auction 24 16
African-Americans are more likely than whites
to do these activities online Online blacks Online whites
Do research for school or job training 71 58
Look for information about a new job 61 38
Listen to music online 46 30
Download music files 25 13
Hispanics are more likely than non-Hispanic Online
whites to do these activities online Hispanics Online whites
Look for new job information 61 38
Listen to music online 46 30
Young internet users (ages 18-29) are more Young internet
likely than others to do these activities online users Those 30+
Research for school or job training 76 48
Look for new job information 65 31
Use instant messaging 59 33
Listen to music online 53 27
Look up sports scores and information 51 37
Look for information about a place to live 43 27
Download music files 28 11
Share files from my computer 27 17
Log on using a wireless device 26 13
Using dating Web sites 16 5
Online seniors (65+) are more likely than
young internet users to do this online Online seniors Those 18–29
Use email 96 91
Online middle-aged (30–64) are more likely Online middle- Younger and older
than the young or seniors to do this online aged internet users
Research a product or service 81 71
Look for health and medical information 70 57
Do work-related research 56 38

A wide-ranging look at the way women and men use the internet shows that men
continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women, and that men
are still first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies. At the same time, there are
trends showing that women are catching up in overall use and are framing their online
experience with a greater emphasis on deepening connections with people.

Some highlights about how men’s and women’s use of the internet has changed over
time.

• The percentage of women using the internet still lags slightly behind the
percentage of men. Women under 30 and black women outpace their male peers.
However, older women trail dramatically behind older men.

• Men are slightly more intense internet users than women. Men log on more often,
spend more time online, and are more likely to be broadband users.

• In most categories of internet activity, more men than women are participants, but
women are catching up.

• More than men, women are enthusiastic online communicators, and they use
email in a more robust way. Women are more likely than men to use email to
write to friends and family about a variety of topics: sharing news and worries,
planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories. Women are more likely to
feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to
nurturing their relationships. And women include a wider range of topics and
activities in their personal emails. Men use email more than women to
communicate with various kinds of organizations.
 • More online men than women perform online transactions. Men and women are
equally likely to use the internet to buy products and take part in online banking,
but men are more likely to use the internet to pay bills, participate in auctions,
trade stocks and bonds, and pay for digital content.

• Men are more avid consumers than women of online information. Men look for
information on a wider variety of topics and issues than women do.

• Men are more likely than women to use the internet as a destination for
recreation. Men are more likely to: gather material for their hobbies, read online
for pleasure, take informal classes, participate in sports fantasy leagues, download
music and videos, remix files, and listen to radio.

• Men are more interested than women in technology, and they are also more tech
savvy. Still, our data show that men and women are more similar than different in
their online lives, starting with their common appreciation of the internet’s
strongest suit: efficiency. Both men and women approach with gusto online
transactions that simplify their lives by saving time on such mundane tasks as
buying tickets or paying bills.

• Men and women also value the internet for a second strength, as a gateway to
limitless vaults of information. Men reach farther and wider for topics, from
getting financial information to political news. Along the way, they work search
engines more aggressively, using engines more often and with more confidence
than women.

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

Today we input all the information we want using the mouse and the keyboard and we
get the information we want in the screen or in the earphones. The future will be a little
different. To access the internet we will use nothing but a pair of normal sun glasses with
earphones. They already have wireless internet access and you can interact with it using
nothing but your thoughts because that equipment is equipped with brain scanners so they
read what you want to do.
The internet will be one million times faster. You have access to information in real time
and not in static pages. You think about what you want and the search engine is making
that make just for you collecting the information from the entire index, not just the
information from a single page.

It is likely that internet may control us through intelligent super-computer, if immense

power is given to it. It may be instructed to supervise a certain task, but there is great
probability that it will go haywire if some new situation occur unknown to it and will act
against the task. . The futurists also believe addiction to online virtual reality will be a
major difficulty and that the Internet will be a hotbed for the production of terrorism.
Through it any site can be hacked, no doubt it is happening in present also but its
intensity will be very high. How much chaos can be created if airport sites, railways site,
bank sites etc will be hacked.

CONCLUSION

The Internet has changed the world in a lot of ways. Email has become the preliminary
form of communication. The internet is poised to make some huge change with
multimedia and entertainment. Already it has made “intrusion” in our life, when it is
quite too limited to urban boundaries. There is very large mass to be penetrated, by the
internet, in the rural areas. It will revolutionize the whole personality of a man once it
reaches to every nook and cranny of the world. The world will be one click away and will
have unlimited access to anything. But in the process of any kind of development we
should be careful in not allowing the man’s creation to make us to do things in
compulsion.

BIBILOGRAPHY

www.google.com

www.wisegeek.com
www.webmarketerhelp.com

www.pewinternet.org

www.wikipedia.org