With internet invading our lives constantly new laws are
being thought of to keep us safe from cyber bullying and insulting critics on
sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Human rights are being invaded and the internet
is partly to be blamed.
With the ability of accessing and creating blogs and videos
online people’s rights of speech are becoming a lot easier and more real. People
now have the ability to upload blogs and videos expressing themselves about
certain topics and how it makes them feel. This ability means people can
express themselves and create discussions about life and its topics.
With the internet enabling everyone to be connected peoples safety
is slowly becoming unsure. The UK is
most controversial on this topic. This is due to how they are using the
internet to record almost everything they can about each UK citizen. People’s information
is being stored online on a massive network.
Anything from compulsory ID cards to NHS number. Information about their
medical records or points on their driving license is being looked at. Having
this information completely knocks out the idea of privacy of information and
how we control our information not the people controlling the country as well.
Not only is it possible for people to access information
about you but random members of the public are now able to hack into your
computers and find all your details such as bank information and home address.
As the internet grows more and more sites are being published that are
designed to distract people from the world and entertain or relax you for just
five minutes. Sites like YouTube or Miniclip enable people to take a small
break from work and relax while either watching funny/ educational videos or
just playing small internet games such as cut the rope or angry birds. These
sites make masses of money online from users accessing their website and
improve the internet.
Some main advantages of entertainment on the internet is the ability to
spend just five minutes just relaxing and getting away from work. This creates
a more refreshed way of thinking for when they get back to work.
As well as entertaining customers these websites also create a vast amount
of jobs. With YouTube becoming so massive they have to employ a lot more people
to maintain standards on the site. Not only are people being employed to work
for YouTube in offices but recently people are now being paid large amounts of
money to keep making videos on the site. People now have the ability to work at
home doing what they enjoy. Massive channels that started off as a hobby are
now full grown jobs that need no other pay to pay for their living. This
ability of working on what you enjoy and love means jobs have been even more
accessible. This is an amazing advantage
as they create jobs helping people stop becoming unemployed so long as you have
a camera and internet access.
With
so many customers willing to buy the latest gadget or game, technology is being
pushed to its limits on development and new developments are being made faster
than ever before. This great technology advance means people are seeing
innovative products being made that where thought near impossible. An example
of this would be the XBOX Kinect. This amazing device enables people to have no
controller for their games and instead use there hands and body gestures to
control the characters.
Not
only is technology developing much quicker but the price of equipment is
dropping. People now have the ability to make and record their own music. This
improvement itself means professional musicians have a tougher job than ever
before to stay at the top of the charts as new musicians are making good music.
This just shows that technology that was once expensive and only used by
professionals is now being bought by the general public and great musicians are
coming from those advances in music. With sites such as YouTube offering free
video uploads people who make the music at home can now upload them unto the
internet for anyone to view. Examples of this have now become worldwide and
people now have become celebrities through this.
With
the massive increase of smart phones and tablets the choice of what to buy
online now has become so much wider. Customers now have the choice on whether
to buy DVDs or music on digital or CD format. This choice enables people to
have their own copy of a film or album on their phone and means they won’t lose
it. With internet so readily available people are able to purchase these things
online and not think about when they will arrive in the post because it will
already be on their phone. With this ability of purchasing online smaller
companies are able to make profit with distribution. Small TV companies can now
access thousands more customers at a smaller cost through sites such as ITunes
and Amazon. Production companies can now put there films and music up for sale
on these websites at a much smaller cost than what it would have been if they
had to produce CDs and DVDs.
With
all these improvements in online buying less DVDs and CDs are being bought.
Instead they are all being purchased in a digital format where they can only be
processed on certain devices. With this improvement a smaller production of
DVDs means people could lose their jobs due to lack of purchases.
As more
people go on YouTube or gaming sites more people are being distracted for
longer times away from their work and duties. Bosses of companies are loosing
more and more time from their employees as they play games. When Google
launched their doodle to celebrate 30 years the total time spent on this
special version of Pac-Man was over 4.82 million hours. You can only imagine
the amount of people who played this game while at work. With so many hours
being spent playing this game the amount of money lost through business would
be astronomical.
With
online gaming becoming so popular more and more people are being enticed to sit
around on their games console and not go out and socialize. People are becoming
lazier and are doing less exercise as they are becoming addicted to these
games, as more countries become obese we are only helping ourselves to a
unhealthier lifestyle.
As more
files are uploaded unto iTunes companies like Blockbuster and HMV are finding
that less people are coming into their shops. With all their films and music in
the shop now being offered online for free or at a much reduced price people
are given much better deals than ever before and this is driving people away
from the classic DVD rental shops or Music stores on the high-street. High-street
shops are now having to join them and go online but are losing their shops.
Most
likely one of the biggest problems ever to face media is piracy. Thousands of people are now finding piracy
more tempting than ever and turning to it whenever they need an album or film.
Film producers and music labels are now losing more money than ever and with
more files uploaded each week it’s hard to know how much is being downloaded.
Recently web browsers has started to stop piracy websites and now block them automatically
before the customer even has a choice in if they want to access them. This advancement
in piracy crime shows companies are losing more money than ever.
With Britain being one of the most watched nations in the world with roughly over 1.85 million cameras in the UK and approximately one CCTV camera for 32 people. People are becoming more suspicious to what is actually private to them and what members of the public are being filmed doing, especially when they are caught on CCTV about 300 times a day . With all of these cameras Britain should be one of the safest countries in the world but fails to reach even the top 10!
With so many cameras there are multiple advantages to a CCTV controlled nation. Although the UK isn’t the safest the police however are very good at finding the criminals. With so much CCTV police are able to watch the footage and find out what they did and what they look like. This ability makes polices job a lot easier on finding who did it
Other advantages would be for private owners. If people are curious to what happens on their property such as farmers land, they have the ability to have surveillance on their ground and see what happens.
Another major advantage is how it has the ability to reduce bullying, underage drinking or drug taking. To have 24 hour live surveillance footage means whoever controls the CCTV can call the police to search the parks and maybe stop violent behaviour while it is happening.
With the internet growing and Google maps becoming such a big thing police are now able to create maps online showing where crime hotspots are and what crimes have been committed there. These maps help police stop crime by patrolling specific areas making it a much safer place. Another great thing about these maps is that they help the public with house buying. Public are able to go onto the maps and see where the crime hotspots are around the area they plan to buy in.
With crime being committed every day and more people getting caught by police, they are now able to create databases for each criminal including their crimes, thumbprint and personal details. With this information they can narrow down their suspects and even know who it is first time they look at the crime scene. Even without having their information on the database they are able to estimate what the suspect looks like and even what age they are. They have the ability to do this by looking at DNA and working out where they have come from.
Although all these are great advantages however they all have their drawbacks. With CCTV being so imminent in the UK people have increasingly less privacy and there would always be someone who has the ability to watch people.
Another drawback is the use of maps and crime geography. With the ability to search your area for crime towns and cities are being downgraded due to crime. Towns are now being thought of worse than they were because the public are now able to see what happens and then judge the place on that alone.
With DNA profiling becoming more widely used peoples DNA is being tracked and collected. The public have very little choice in if the police can keep the information and this creates controversy.
Through the ages entertainment is found throughout everywhere we go. Since the internet people have found more ways to be entertained via YouTube and online gaming. Entertainment on the internet is aimed at anyone old enough to read and understand. There are websites aimed at any age such as CBBC (a games site for kids) or Miniclip (games site for teenagers). The reason for such wide target market is because there isn’t just one website. There are loads of different websites that offer entertainment towards the audience with each website offering a form of entertainment for a certain age and type of person. Not only does online entertainment involve websites but also gaming. People are playing games online with Xbox’s and PlayStations and are now downloading apps onto their phones.
The fact that it is all on the internet (which is a highly accessible thing now a days) means it is a great form of entertainment. Sites such as YouTube (a site that enables people to post videos online) are now running businesses online that offer entertainment. The most popular videos have over 100million views!!
Some of the positives of internet entertainment are that people are now able to be entertained almost anywhere in the country; people are now able to listen to music online on a phone and without trouble. With so much technology available now it would be very hard not to find some sort of entertainment that you enjoy, whether it be on your smartphone, games console or on the internet.
Although there are so many positives for entertainment on the internet there are also many drawbacks for it as well. People could get attached to games online or on the games console; this could lead to money being spent on them and being wasted.Not only are there games online but the internet now offers online casinos and betting shops. With the use of gambling online people could start gambling addictions because all they have to do to access casinos/betting shops is go onto the internet. With the internet being so widely accessible to everyone people at work now have the ability to ignore their jobs and play games instead or watch YouTube videos. Having this accessible while doing work creates a massive distraction. When I attempt to do work on the computer I get distracted very easily and end up not doing work and play games instead.
Internet allows everyone to be entertained and with its wide accessibility it could possibly be one of the best forms of entertainment as its easily accessible and also has such a wide choice.
E-commerce (electronic commerce) was first introduced in the 1970’s and meant that businesses were able to send money transactions and commercial documents (purchases) electronically. During this time credit cards were becoming more popular and with this e commerce become more common and widely used.
When the internet was invented in 1990 it opened a whole new way to shop. People were able to buy products online from transactional websites. With the internet becoming more popular in the early 1990’s encryptions and protocols had to be used to create better security for all users. At the start of the 21st century people were able to buy the majority of products online. People now commonly assume e-commerce with online retail.
Now people commonly assume buying online with websites such as eBay, Amazon or any clothes stores. Companies now are able to run completely on the internet and have no stores in city centres. More and more online stores are opening each week and security for each transaction has radically improved since the start of e-commerce.
One of the safest ways to buy online currently is by using PayPal. It was founded in 1998 and is now used world wide on a vast number of transactional websites such as Amazon and eBay. It offers a safe and simple way to pay for products and in 2008 it represented nearly 9% of global e-commerce. When buying products online I use PayPal the majority of the times and it makes every transaction very simple to complete. All it requires all users to have a PayPal account but this is only done to save time entering details when you next purchase.
PayPal is used in large number of sites that sell products online. A good example of this is Amazon. Amazon is an online based company which sells products from books to bikes. It mainly offers products from its warehouse but now offers customers to sign up themselves and sell their own products. Amazon stores almost all of its products in warehouses and sends them off once bought. Not only are you able to buy items which will be delivered but you are now able to purchase downloadable products such as music and books.
When using Amazon I found that it was very easy to find what I was looking for and was even able to sort all the options into price and category. I was able to buy more than one thing at a time and with PayPal made it very simple to order and confirm my payment.
Although all these online transactions are good there are a lot of negatives to this as well. Having your details online mean that there is a chance that they could be hacked and your details could be used.
