The Arpanet was not an internet, it was a connection between two or more computer networks the aim was to try and make the computers understand and encrypt messages through a network, this idea was called ‘packet switching’, the first message was sent in 1969 from a computer science professor and his team at UCLA to Stanford research institute, and this was a part of the Arpanet project. Web 1. 0 consisted of Homepages rather that were personal to the designer and in relation to the design the pages were static and in terms of interactivity.The end user could not impact or change the website in any way. The main emphasis behind web 1. 0 was that it was a large scale of information produced by only a couple of web producers for the masses, so it could just easily be changed or modified, so in basic terms the authorities of the web, held all the keys in terms of development.
Web 2. 0 was the stage of interactivity in the internet world it’s the stage in which every person was made to feel apart of the internet experience and can influence it, although the term web 2. 0 suggest a better version of web 1. its actually describes the change in how developers and users use the web. Benjamin Woolley in Virtual worlds (1992) predicted that the internet would become a place where ‘the users and producers of there own material’.When we consider the modern state of Internet this is true, for example with the ever increasing social network sites this seems to be relevant.
To date Facebook has 400 million active users, all able to place upload there own content, make there opinion herd and become the users of other content for example viewing other peoples personal profiles and interacting with them. In cyberspace, everyone is an author, which means that no one is an author: the distinction upon which it rest, the author distinct from the reader’ (Woolley). The whole thesis behind web 2. 0 is that is for everyone, anyone can make there mark unlike web1. 0, due to the advancement in interactivity it is made the internet a more user friendly place than previously, where almost anyone with basic computer knowledge could navigate there way around the space.
The main advancements to take note of in web 2. 0 are web applications such as java script which helped interactivity and the style of web 2. , e. g. more features such as widgets , encrypted videos and music soundtrack as well as alternating html as the mouse moves over the web page in term of background and CSS design. Social networking unlocked a new venture for the internet with the introduction of web 2.
0 in the way of virtual communities or network society’s, according to Elisabeth Reid (1993:6) ‘internet users constitute a social network who share a common language, a shared web of virtual and textual significance that are substitutes for, and yet distinct from the shared networks of meaning in wider community’.Whilst considering this I thought that it’s clear that the concept of the ‘community’ is reliant upon communication that how we define it, so for example the sharing of common meanings. As Barlow (1995:40) describes in his book what are we doing on-line? ’, ‘we are now creating a space in which people of the planet can have (a new) kind of communication relationship: I want to be able completely interact with the consciousness that’s trying to communicate with me’. Although regardless of this a community is something which is contingent in terms of space and location.This is something in which computer networks cannot uphold, a community, the very definition is described upon something real, something that is geographically based. So although people meet online through a network and yes maybe share common meanings, but there are a variety of flaws, the main of which is the concept of the ‘virtual stranger’.
Elizabeth Reid in, ‘the Electronic chat’: social issues on internet relay chat (1997:30), talks about the community of the stranger, she states ‘one enters one’s onversation in order to become other for anther’, also the states that ‘internet interaction involve a large number of self representations via the creation of replacements and substitutes for physical cues and the construction of social hierarchy’s and the positions of authority (31). This shows some of the concerns I would point out , such as hidden identity , although social interaction need people , its not clear what people we are actually talking to again , it’s the same problem of that were occurred with the community , because its only a connection in a networked space we have no concept of who it could be .Instead we our asked to almost simulate who it is we see which we our talking to, which leads us to the next problem which is that, the internet , especially with the web 2. 0 can give anyone power anyone can say anything and it could be completely wrong , for example Wikipedia anyone can upload information on to there whether it be right or wrong the same principle lies with virtual communities and communication, that people can make themselves there ideal person on the web they can over emphasise and make a better social representation , almost a way to start again in term of your self formation , almost in a completely new simulation.This point brings me on to discuss ‘control’; the internet is such a vast space in which it almost anyone can use, and most people can access, for a long time there has been debate over ‘policing of the internet’. The interactive websites such as facebook, YouTube, flickr and twitter are being accused by media institutions that of showing ‘unsuitable material of unsuitable minds’, I believe this point to be valid, but in I believe that with the at the end of the day the user decides what they want to see and more importantly what we as users put onto web 2.
0 , so we have no one to blame except ourselves. The moral panic surrounding ‘children and the internet ‘ the idea that there should be greater project for minority groups when on the internet, e. g. children coming across violent images of gun crime or internet pornography. Although its clear that this happens, in the UK Riddell’s (1995) study found that ‘40% of newspaper articles contained misleading statistics, and 60% were calling for a change in the law over Internet regulation.
As a result of the Literature Review, the main question appeared to be: were British newspapers exaggerating the “dangers” of the Internet’. I believe web 2. 0 is merely a platform a foundation in which we walk on, therefore for us to call it ‘the devils work’ is hypocrisy. I believe if we were stating this fact upon a web 1. 0 era then there would be a case worth arguing, because the material would have been upload by a select few trying to influence, rather than any one from any computer in any location, although even if it was a few trying to influence it still boils down to control.
Manuel Castells in The Internet Galaxy(2001:169-172) talks about the internet and notion of control, ‘the only way to control the internet was to be in the network, and this rapidly became too high a price to pay for countries around the world….. controls are exercised on the basis of space defined on a network’. Adding to this point I feel that, society looks upon the internet in which it should be policed like society, but I feel that society and the internet are completely different forms.As they may share features of one anther, we as humans feel in necessary to create sense of something, we don’t understand therefore, in Baudrillard’s concept, we simulate the gaps of which we cannot interpret by our senses, to make it into something we can understand.Anther key issue with modern society and the internet is ‘virtual addiction’, I found that it’s an actual medical condition, which amazed me because I was believed it to be psychological, but it can actually it can be as addictive as smoking according to Dr.
David Greenfield, within his book entitled ‘Virtual Addiction’(1999), he describes the ‘internet and medium’s which use the internet as being like a drug’, ‘because for 30 percent of internet users it alternates their mood as a social drug would such as alcohol’. I’m sure since the publications of his book in 1999 the figures have been steadily increasing, and maybe even more dramatic when you consider web 2. 0 and its interactivity with its end users.Like a point I have previously made on the access of content on the web l, I do not believe the internet to be good or bad, it’s the people who use it and shape the architecture of it who decide that, as Greenfield makes clear in his book ‘technology is amoral’. The level of addiction expands beyond the format of a computer screen, to online games.
Anderson and Dill in their journal and experiments Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviour in the Laboratory and Life (2000:1), discovered that ‘violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behaviour and delinquency.They also found that laboratory exposure to a graphically violent videogame increased aggressive thoughts and behaviour (2000: 1). Examples of the gaming danger include the tragic death of a 9-month-old child. In 2001, Tony Lamont Bragg placed his son in a closet, so he could play the game “Everquest”. His priority was his game, and when he finally thought to check on his son after 24 hours, he found him lifeless. Today, Bragg is serving a fifteen-year term in prison, after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Although I argue that internet as a singular object is not blame, when it comes to online games it proposes a whole new dilemma.I would agree that online gaming is heavily addictive and can cause actions of imitation and violence. I feel that that when something as powerful as gaming , with the ever advancing cinematic values they hold in modern society and the fact that when you combine that with playing with actually people somewhere over the world can have negative impacts, like before stating that a virtual community can give someone new self formation I feel that online games do this, but give people a chance to be a negative part of a community e. g. part of community they want to test e. g.
violence within games, that can then lead to simulation in there own life. Greenfield shares the notion of ‘power’ in regards to online sources ‘There is an abundance of clinical, legal, and anecdotal evidence to suggest that there is something unique about being online that seems to produce a powerful impact on people’. I believe the evidence that I have gathered proves that yes the internet has some areas in which we cannot control, but I believe that the internet has done so much to change the world.Visualize a world social networking, a world without up to date news, and a world without endless information. Without the internet we, as a society, would be almost be ground to a halt.
We would have difficulty to communicate, and difficulty to get information. It is thus apparent how fundamental the internet is to the survival of our civilization. The internet is an integral part of our society. It is all over the world that we live in.
The internet is important because of the basic fact that it brings about tremendous benefits to mankind.Thus, with all these conveniences and advantages that the internet brings to us it is difficult to imagine a world without it. So without the internet it seems our lives may as well be reverted 30 years, I believe that there are strands of evil on the internet but , the internet can only be described as a platform, its not told what to do , it does not tell us what to do. I believe if society views it as a platform rather than a virtual realm which most cannot fully nderstand, then society could understand really we should be pointing blame at ourselves rather the internet. I believe the key aspect of the internet is its availability and the way in which it jumped onto the scene two decades ago and it seemed like it had been there for ever.
(Bolter and Grusin 1999) ‘Web based media establishes itself from Immediacy’. As we delve further into the 21st century a feel Bill Gates quote of the internet been the town centre of a global village has been truly achieved.
