Culture of the Internet

The internet is a form of new communication technology that many use to meet new friends. Although there is a plethora of applications like MSN messenger and MySpace available for communication and socialising online, in my opinion, they cannot ever replace or come close to having proper face-to-face contact and conversation with someone. Despite this however, I have to admit, that these programs make cross-border communication easier and more affordable. Coming from a different country and without internet technology I would have a hard time in keeping in touch with family and friends as well as an expensive phone bill. The net in my opinion, is also revolutionary for containing vast amounts of cheap, easily accessible information and research but, can be dangerous when people become addicted to the internet and spend all the spare time they have in front of a screen! I have been using the internet for a couple of years and was influenced to start using it basically because everyone else did. I also got MySpace because everybody else did. MySpace is a combination of blogging, text messaging, emailing and instant messaging, allowing users to meet and/or stay in touch with a vast network of people without giving them details that may be too personal including phone numbers or email addresses. A scenario where this might be useful could be meeting a friend of a friend at a social function and contacting them after through MySpace. Users can view the profiles of their "Friends" and the profiles of the "Friends" of these "Friends" and find people they know like real life friends or people with similar interests. Meeting people online like on MySpace however, is drastically different from meeting people in real life. One reason for this could be that communicating through the internet allows people to adopt a different persona online. In a broader context, the internet is a form of new communication technology I believe that has the potential for both good and bad and an incredible future filled with opportunities. In the near future I believe that this new technology will be even more advanced as more people learn to exploit its many opportunities (internet shopping in recent years, for example). Hopefully by then, we would not have also forgotten the value of other forms of communication! Human beings are born with the need to communicate and looking at the history of humankind to date we can look forward to newer and more advanced forms of communication technology that may even surpass that of the internet.