Internet: A Way To Communicate

The Internet: A Way to Communicate

The word communicate means to send a message. You communicate when you talk to someone, or when you write a letter to a friend. Communication means all different ways of sending messages or passing information from one person to another. These include visual methods such as sign language, auditory, such as voice and music, and physical, such as touch. Communication allows us to give this information to others for the purpose of enriching life for ourselves and others.

We are living through a period characterized by the works of a new technological paradigm organized around information technologies. This period is being driven by the new information and communication technologies. It is the most important revolution since the industrial revolution.

Advances in electronics, computers, and satellites mean that we can send information farther and communicate faster than ever before. Powerful rockets have placed communications satellites in orbit around the earth. They relay thousands of telephone calls across continents so quickly that you can talk to people on the other side of the world as if they were next door. Communication satellites also carry television and radio programs, facsimile images, telex messages, and computer data.

One of the new communications technologies that are affecting our lives on a scale of significant as the telephone and television is the Internet. Some people believe that when it comes to distributing information, the Internet is the most significant invention since the printing press. If you use a telephone, write letters, read a newspaper or magazine, or do business or any kind of research, the Internet can radically alter your entire worldview.

Everywhere you turn, you hear people talking about the Net. Radio shows give you their e-mail address, businesses give you their Web site, and strangers ask whether you have a home page. People are going online and staying connected. Because the Internet is the world's largest computer network, it has an amazing array of information to offer.

The Internet's capabilities are so expansive. When people talk about the Internet today, they are usually talking about what they can do, what they have found, and whom they have met. It is the interconnection of computers around the world. It allows users of these computers to communicate in a variety of ways such as electronic mail, streaming conferencing, website information, file sharing, and others. In this age of Globalization, spearheaded by Internet-based technologies, it is almost suicidal for anyone individual or country to think of staying on the sidelines, without being on board.

Interactive computer networks are growing exponentially, creating new forms and channels of communication, shaping life and being shaped by life at the same time. Electronic communication provides a "sensory expansion for the species by allowing people to experience an extraordinary array of things while staying geographically in the same spot" (Bender pg. 17).

"The ancestor of the Internet was the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency), a project funded by the Department of Defense in 1969" (Levine, Baroudi, & Young pg.21). It was commissioned by the Pentagon to look into the uses of networking for military purposes. It soon became obvious that the ARPANET was becoming a human-communication medium with very important advantages over normal United States mail and over telephone calls. From there, the Internet was steadily developed to benefit the whole populace.

The internet impacts so much of our daily lives that it has become indispensable to so many people and businesses. One of the most popular applications on the Internet is Electronic mail. It is a natural use of networked communication technology that developed along evolution of the Internet. With the Internet, an email can be sent and reach its destination instantaneously. It usually takes a few minutes for the message to get to its destination, even if it is thousands of miles away. E-mails have made the world a smaller place, allowing people separated by great distances to correspond. Just about anyone uses email, and generally people do it all the time. Some users may send one or two messages a week, other dozens, and some send and receive thousands.

E-mail programs allow you to compose and send mail, check for new messages you have received, and read these messages. They also allow you to store these messages on your hard drive.

Other applications for communicating on the Internet are instant messaging and chat rooms. People are talking to people over the globe about everything. They enter chat rooms with several other people or one special someone. Services such as AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Skype allow people to send messages instantaneously, much like a phone conversation, but using written messages. There are also "virtual rooms" on the Internet facilitated by services developed for this reason. These "rooms" allow many users to chat using written messages.

Another Internet application used to communicate is Webpages. Webpages are like virtual homes on the Internet. They allow people