Internazi

The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow. (Bill Gates, 2003)

If I had not taken socio 10 this semester, I would never have known that whatever I upload or post in the internet will be recorded and kept in a so-called database.

Frightened about the fact that all the information I share through the internet, I now limit and try to screen all the data I am about to post. This idea has taught me to carefully select the content I would contribute to the immense technological world that can be easily visited by different kinds of people from all over the world. Doing so gives me peace and somehow makes me feel safe to a certain extent.

Also, knowing that the global broad-based militant Islamist organization named Al-Qaeda sparked up through the use of the world-wide-web made my fear of the extreme effects the internet could have on the society a lot more serious. These terrorist movements benefit so much from the internet. The advantages of the internet have not gone unnoticed by the terrorist organization and no matter what their race or political orientation are, all of them seemed to find the Internet alluring.

Internet has become a very powerful tool in bringing together the different worlds of the different users of the said concept. The success of the actions Al-Qaeda has made or rather the innovation of the methods modern terrorism use with their attacks attest to everyone that the Internet, definitely, is capable of making what once was impossible to do, possible.

Relating this to my situation, the flaws of the most recent USC campaigning and elections were scrutinized and publicized by our sociology class through the internet. The action driven by pure volunteerism started when the classroom campaigns began to matter. Several problems were noticed like the bad compliance with some of the policies regarding campaigning, having black propagandas, excessive production of campaign materials, too much branding, irrelevant information on posters  and other problematic situations that are present throughout the campaign period of the USC elections. Our class posted our sentiments on the world-wide-web and aimed to collect as much signatures as possible for the newly elected psychopaths would only pay attention to our action if the petition gained the appropriate amount of signatures.

Surprised to see the results, within the span of about two to three days, the petition has gotten 700 and more signatures! That is only proving to us that the internet is really a breakthrough in our century.

Although there really are drawbacks associated with the Internet, it is still undeniable that it affects our society greatly. People nowadays would not be able to live in a world without internet. Just thinking about how much of a convenience it has been in our lives just makes the Internet a huge part of the society. Just like the basic concept in sociology wherein the society determines and affects the self just as much as the self affects the society, internet pretty much does the same. People created the internet and so in turn, the internet now can make a huge change to a person.

I can only hope that the benefits can overcome the downsides the Internet can bring.

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