5 Ways the Internet Has Changed the World

The internet has only positively been colse to for most citizen for less than 20 years, yet its impact on the world has been immense. What follows are five ways the internet has changed the world.

Communication

Justin Bieber

Remember the days when you had to pick up a piece of paper and a pen in order to write to someone? And then you would have to go through the process of putting the letter in an envelope, stamping it and taking it to a post office to send. All this, and the card you sent for Christmas would invariably arrive sometime colse to Easter...

But that was before the arrival of the internet. With the internet came e-mail, and then a bit later VoIp, Instant messaging and video calls. Now you can send a letter to person halfway across the world, positive that it will arrive practically instantly. You can have telephone conversations online, and even video chats, so granny in South Africa can see her grandchildren in Australia and talk to them like they were in the same room.

This doesn't even consist of group media such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, which allow citizen to narrate with a large number of friends at a time, as well as to post pictures and comments.

Entertainment

In the days before the internet, it we wanted to watch Tv, we had to watch anything was being shown by the networks. If you missed an episode, and weren't able to description it, that was it unless you managed to see a rerun. Now, with the rise of the internet, you can not only download anything lesson of anything series whenever you want, you can also download movies, music, games and more.

It used to be that to be discovered as a musician or actor, you had to go to auditions and be "discovered by agents and directors or music business executives. Today, all you need to do is post a video of yourself on YouTube or MySpace, like Justin Bieber or Lily Allen.

With the internet, you no longer have to wait for a friend to visit if you want to play multiplayer games. There are now numerous games that you can play online against citizen all over the world. There are even games like Second Life, where citizen are able to log on to a virtual world and interact with other people. They are able to buy property, create works of art and have relationships.

News

With the internet came a different form of news. You used to have to rely on the mainstream media for your daily dose of news. You know how it went, every night at 7 the kids would have to be dead quiet because dad had to watch the evening news, and the stories of butlers having to iron the morning newspapers for their wealthy masters. The news was basically fed to you, you weren't able to go out and find different opinions.

Nowadays, you are able to go out and find the news. You can read an description on the gulf oil spill on the Time Magazine site, and then read one from a different point of view from Cnn. The news is also no longer just being reported by journalists and mainstream media. There have been many times where the larger news associates have been scooped by smaller sites, or even blogs, as in the case of Michael Jackson's death where Tmz.com was the first to description that he had been taken to the hospital.

Information

One of the biggest advantages the internet has had to our daily lives is that now we can find a piece of information everywhere in the world where there is internet access. Need info on the Mount St. Helen's eruption? The release date of the newest Artemis Fowl book? Or even instructions on how to tie positive boy scout knots? In just a few seconds, you can find millions of sites that give you just what you are looking for. No more spending hours searching through the library for me...

Business

Just about every type of business, from large news corporations, to small clothing stores have websites to promote themselves and their products. New methods of business have even started due to the web, such as citizen production money from blogs and websites they have started, web originate companies, and on-line shops that have thrived with many citizen choosing on-line shopping over going to regular shops.

5 Ways the Internet Has Changed the World