Internet & Student

INTERNET & STUDENT

The Internet outbreak and the significant development of information technology has provided human with a large amount of information and created expressive modification in people’s lives. Therefore, it is no doubt that the Internet has played an important role in our life since it was born and undergone each period of innovation demonstrated below.

Internet standing for Interconnected Network is a global information system. It is a public access network including thousands of connecting computer networks. The forerunner of Internet was the ARPANET network established by Advanced Research Projects Agency which is an agency of the United States Department of Defense. The important historic landmark of the Internet was in the mid 1980s when National Science Foundation founded a network called

NSFNET to connect large computer centers together. Because many businesses switched from ARPANET to NSFNET, ARPANET could not ran effectively any longer, which led to its shutdown in 1990 after 20 years of operation.The spine network’s foundation of NSFNET and other area networks created an advantageous environment for the development of the Internet. After all, NSFNET gathered into a research network, whereas the Internet has been improving.

Due to its ability to connect openly, Internet has become the largest network all over the world, which is inevitable in almost every field such as business, politics, military, education and so on. After that, Internet has improved constantly to create humans’ new era called Electronic Business Era (E-Business Era) on the Internet. Was absorbed by technology connoisseurs since the first day of appearing, the Internet quickly caught the attention of normal customers to use online business service like Amazon online bookstore and online auction site called eBay. In 1996, Hotmail appeared on the Internet which allowed users to make an online mail box. In other words, email can be accessed at anytime and from anywhere. Although the speed of email outweighs traditional way, direct messaging online was put into service as the fastest mode of personal communication. One of the most popular direct messaging online was ICQ introduced in 1996. While Netscape was a browser giving people the first chance to surf the Internet, Google was born to be more successful than previous other systems thanks to its new search algorithm which adapted to larger and large web scope.

Subsequently, it was the beginning of social networking sites. In 2001, online encyclopedia Wikipedia appeared where store information like children’s encyclopedia at first, then it has developed when British encyclopedia publish in 1911 became public. Whereas people often use the Internet to communicate and search information, others prefer to listen to online music from shows and big events. To satisfy customers, iTunes service of Apple appeared which allowed users to download their favorite music legally. The improvement of sharing network for friends also came out into society such as Napster and Sky. Using similar technology, free calls could be provided to users when they turned on these applications. Then they were expanded including video messages and video conferencing. Video technology was considered to serve other fields like medical which allow physicians to examine patients who are thousands of miles away. Although chat rooms and direct online messages were still popular at that time, social networks began to uncover forming another exchanging method. In May 2003, the social networking sites for experts called LinkedIn was brought into the world. Next, there was the birth of MySpace in August. In the meantime, Mark Zuckerberg, a student of Harvard   University, introduced his friends to Facebook, which is a social network established for students at the school in 2004. Thanks to the support of Harvard society, Facebook was extended for users outside the university in 2007.

In 2007, at the same time with Facebook’s expansion, there was a revolution of smartphones when the first version of Iphone together with a series of smartphones entered society allowing Internet access at anywhere. In fact, smartphones has revolutionized people to browse information. In other words, people do not need to stick to computers if they want to connect the Internet. To serve wide market, both AppStore and Android has increased the number of their applications constantly, which allows people to play games, share pictures and videos, and even complete airport procedures on the street.  

The development of social networks and smartphones has not had a sign to become slow which motivates the using the internet for social purposes. Firstly, the strength of social networking sites were not skipped at areas where world dispute occurred. For instance, Egyptian youth used to take the advantage of social networks to organize a demonstration opposing Hosni Mubarak, who was present president at that time. Regarding positive sides, the Internet has made convenient conditions for “video bloggers” publicize various genres such as beauty tips, fashion, and film reviews. This hobby has become coin money industry deleting the barrier between personal opinions and advertisement. In addition, the Internet is an inevitable tool in social campaigns nowadays. In fact, the strength of social networking sites were shown in #bringbackourgirls campaign, which required Boko Haram to release hundreds of kidnapped Nigeria schoolgirls.