Group 1: More The Same (as Daniel's allocated)
The internet is changing the world??? This is a fallacy just like the Y2K bug
Effect on the quality of life
The internet is a tool that has helped the sharing of information, but the grunt of work is still done by humans. The processor speed has increased to 20 gigahertz per second and most PCs have over 1000 gigabytes of memory. Although there are significant advancements in technology, the average work week has actually increased to 50 hours. With the expensive capital expenditures in newer computer platforms, companies are expecting more from their employees to compensate for the investment in technology.
Portable computing devices, such as PDAs and Blackberrys, are losing popularity because executives were having difficulty drawing the line between work and home. Being able to answer emails immediately did not seem worth the loss of personal time and privacy. In addition, the stress of receiving emails during dinner time and on vacations had led to an increase in work-related depression.
The expectations of the internet bringing wide spread changes to the way of life did not materialize for many inter-related reasons. They are as follows:
- The economy took too long to come out of the recession, which started at the turn of the century. Corporations were not able to supply enough cash flow to facilitate the R&D into technology. The investors grew weary of the growth potential of the technology firms, such as computer component manufacturers and application developers. This led to a shift of capital to more reputable companies in more stable industries, such as utilities and consumer goods.
- Large corporations that were searching for efficiencies started outsourcing many services to lower wage countries. Under pressure from lobby groups and labour unions, the government implemented policies to keep jobs in the westernized nations and mitigate the discrepancy between the social classes. This along with the privacy risk within emerging countries slowed the pace of technological advancement.
- Globalization had taken its toll on society. Many nations put pressure on authorities to protect their cultural identity. Their was continuous debate how to address this issue and the source of the problem, which could be attributed to many areas such as the World Wide Web, migration and inter-racial relations.
- Algorithms that are used in programming language reached their limits. Computer applications are not able to deal with the complexity to solve the problems that require human logical and reasoning. Computers code was not able to convert subjective variables in the programs, such as time and effect on humans. These situation circumstances are the grey areas that still require humans to use their judgment.
- Companies reduce their employees’ access to the internet after analyzing their productivity. The initial benefits of information availability did not out weigh the costs of personal use and constant distraction during work. This had a negative effect on e-commerce, because consumers were not online as much as expected. Although the product availability had increased substantially by 2015, the actual number of purchase had experienced gradual decreases.
E-Business
The number of purchases conducted on the web had significantly decreased due to the amount criminal activity, such as unauthorized transactions and fraud. Credit cards companies, who had initially had insurance to protection, left customers to bear the risk when making purchases online. This had a negative impact on the internet, which had been growing in the late 20th century.
The main reasons for the disappointing growth rate were security concerns and the social needs for interaction, especially in the B2C market. The security concerns were attributed for Microsoft’s loss of its virtual monopoly to Monzilla FireFox within the web browser market in 2006. In addition, the social need for interaction has however acted as a balancing loop in e-commerce. Long believed to be negligible in importance, scientists were amazed to discover that the need to touch and feel products in real life, especially in the younger generations.
Education
Internet did not change the education patterns as it was expected. The applications developed did not have adequate learning content and did not show any improvement in the educational process. Although the internet because a helpful tool in the pedagogical methods, it did not become a substitute for the traditional teaching approaches. The initial reasons for introducing the internet in the classroom was the availability of scientific, medical, and historical information. The students were found to use the web for immoral activities, such as visiting pornographical sites and racial hate chatrooms. As of 2005, there were about 8 billion Web pages, which multiplied for the many years after. The Internet became considered a vast uncataloged library. And the search engines, such as Lycos and Infoseek, only focused on a small fraction of the net. The materials that are found are of low quality in term of their literary value because only about 8% of journals and books are on the internet. In addition, majority of the materials require the user to subscribe for a ridiculous fee. The lack of control of the content and difficulty in policing the students are the main reasons why the internet is not a significant instrument in the education system.
In terms of higher education, the online degrees programs, which had flourished in the century, were not valued as much by corporations in the recruiting of staff. Most of the graduates of these programs did not secured good positions, which had negative impact on the enrollment. By 2015, there are very few institutions offering e-learning and the traditional university in-class lectures are still the main source of a high quality post secondary education.
Effects of emerging countries on advancement of Internet
Conflict of interests on Internet between emerging countries and development strain the advancement of the internet. In 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held by the Government of Tunisia resulted in breakdown between emerging countries, such as China, Brazil and African countries, and developed countries, such as the U.S.A, European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan. The main area of disagreement is the issue of internet governance. The emerging countries claim that political administration should be controlled by the intergovernmental organization, International Telecommunication Union (ITU). But the US wants it under the jurisdiction of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is a non-profit entity located in California. The developed nations claimed that private sector driven scheme should be continued because that is more efficient to organize, which was the main reason to tip the scales in their favour. Initially, the number of IP addresses increased in the emerging markets, but the political situation of the US hindered the full proliferation. The government its power to influence the ICANN to help with its agendas, which was in the best interest of the American citizens. This came at a cost of the expansion of the internet into China and India. From the ICANN’s inception many of the planned initiatives were abandoned, such as the Digital Joint Fund which was intended to cover cost of internet infrastructure in emerging countries. The Generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management became a means of regulating the internet to the developed countries’ favour.
In 2015, as a result of above conflict between emerging countries and developed countries, conventional media such as radio and TV remained as major providers of information in emerging countries. As a result, the internet was more prevalent in the developed countries than that of the emerging nations.