Impact of Internet

Abstract

This paper tends to perform a critical analysis about the impact of the Internet to our society. It will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet and its social implications. Moreover, this paper will discuss the current stability of the internet in our society with respect to education, business, politics, and society. Moreover, Internet crimes such as Fraud achieved by the manipulation of computer records, Spamming where this is outlawed completely or where regulations controlling it are violated, Deliberate circumvention of computer security systems, Unauthorised access to or modification of programs (hacking) and data, Industrial espionage by means of access to or theft of computer materials, Identity theft where this is accomplished by use of fraudulent computer transactions, Writing or spreading computer viruses or worms, Salami slicing is the practice of stealing money repeatedly in extremely small quantities and pornography will be discussed. A recurrent theme across domains is that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media and patterns of behavior. Thus in each domain, utopian claims and dystopic warnings based on extrapolations from technical possibilities have given way to more announced and circumscribed understandings of how Internet use adapts to existing patterns, permits certain innovations, and reinforces particular kinds of change. Moreover, in each domain the ultimate social implications of this new technology depend on economic, legal, and policy decisions that are shaping the Internet as it becomes institutionalized.

Impact of Internet

Introduction

In the general sense, an internet (with a lowercase "i", a shortened form of the original inter-network) is a computer network that connects several networks. As a proper noun, the Internet is the publicly available internationally interconnected system of computers (plus the information and services they provide to their users) that uses the TCP/IP suite of packet switching communications protocols. Thus, the largest internet is called simply "the" Internet. The art of connecting networks in this way is called internetworking.

This paper tends to perform a critical analysis about the impact of the Internet to our society. This paper will also tackle the positive and negative effects of the internet. In particular, the research will focus on the questions: “What are the related factors affecting the progress of modern society in relation to internet advantages and disadvantages?” In this study, the background, context and theme of the study are presented; the objectives of the study and the research statements are formulated. Here, vital concepts, questions and assumptions are stated. Finally, the scope and limitation of the study, methodology to be used and the significance of the research are discussed. Further, this paper briefly reviews related literature.

Purpose of the Study

Generally, the purpose of the study is to conduct a critical analysis to determine the impact of the Internet. The research will specifically identify the different factors related to positive and negative effect of the internet. Moreover, this study would review relevant literature on the same topic. Based on the preliminary review of literature, the researcher assumed that the Internet has a significant effect/ impact to our society.

Research Question and Null Hypothesis

The focus of this problem statement is to establish and determine the impact of the internet to our community. Currently, there are limited studies that provide a definitive answer regarding the negative and positive influence of the internet. The researcher is hopeful that this study will yield a significant result in terms of both positive and negative impact of respect to our modern community. Thus, the study will work on the following hypothesis: “There is a significant relationship between the progress of Internet and modern society”

This study will attempt to answer the following questions:

1. Should (or must) businesses use the Internet?

2. Is the Internet beneficial?

3. Is it profitable?

4. Is it a significant, lasting change?

5. What are the positive and negative effects of the internet?

Main Material

There is much public concern about the Internet stemming from some of the controversial material it contains. Copyright infringement, pornography and paedophilia, so called "identity theft," and hate speech are common and difficult to regulate (cyber law). "Sex" remains one of the most frequently searched terms on many Internet search engines (cf. sexual morality). Some of the concerns, which many argue are not rationally based, have even approached the level of moral panic, similar to the British one over video nasties in the 1980s.

The Internet has a large and growing number of users that have created a distinct culture, Internet dynamics. (Netiquette, Internet friendship, Trolls and trolling, Flaming, Cybersex, Hacktivism or Hacker culture, Internet humor, Internet slang, and Internet art.)

The Internet is also having a profound impact on knowledge and worldviews. Through keyword-driven Internet research, using search engines, like Google, millions worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast amount and diversity of online information. Compared to books and traditional libraries, the Internet represents a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data.

The most used language for communications on the Internet is English, due to the Internet's origins, to its use commonly in software programming, to the poor capability of early computers to handle characters other than western alphabets.

The net has grown enough in recent years, though, that sufficient native-language content for a worthwhile experience is available in most developed countries. However, some glitches such as mojibake still remain troublesome for Internet users.

Deaths have been blamed on the Internet by some people. Brandon Vedas died after overdosing on a mixture of legal and illegal drugs while other IRC chatters egged him on. Shawn Woolley shot himself after his life was ruined by an addiction to Everquest, according to his mother. Bernd-Jurgen Brandes was stabbed to death and eaten by Armin Meiwes after responding to an Internet advertisement requesting a "well-built male prepared to be slaughtered and then consumed."

Sociology's major theoretical traditions emphasize different aspects of electronic media. For Durkheimians, point-to-point communications media like telephones reinforce organic solidarity, while broadcast media like radio or television yield powerful collective representations (Alexander 1988). Marxists focus upon exploitation of communications media to enhance elite control of both politics and production through cultural hegemony and enhanced surveillance (Schiller 1996, Davis et al 1997). Weberians attend to the ways in which point-to-point media advance rationalization by reducing limits of time and space, and broadcast media provide the elements of distinctive status cultures (Collins 1979).

Other traditions also offer perspectives on the digital media. Technological determinists suggest that structural features of new media induce social change by enabling new forms of communication and cultivating distinctive skills and sensibilities (McLuhan 1967, Eisenstein 1979). In the 1960s, students of social change suggested that in the face of new developments in communications technology, industrial society would yield to the "information society," with consequences in every institutional realm (Machlup 1962, Bell 1973). Critical theorists problematize the effects of technological change on political deliberation and the integrity of civil society (Habermas 1989, Calhoun 1998).

Daniel Bell (1977) appears to have been the first to write about the social impact of digital communications media themselves. Bell predicted that major social consequences would derive from two related developments: the invention of miniature electronic and optical circuits capable of speeding the flow of information through networks; and the impending integration of computer processing and telecommunications into what Harvard's Anthony Oettinger dubbed "compunications" technology. Anticipating the democratization of electronic mail and telefaxing, as well as digital transmission of newspapers and magazines, Bell explored the policy dilemmas these changes would raise, calling "the social organization of the new 'compunications' technology" the most central issue "for the postindustrial society" (1977:38).

More recently, Manuel Castells has argued that the world is entering an "information age" in which digital information technology "provides the material basis" for the "pervasive expansion" of what he calls "the networking form of organization" in every realm of social structure (1996:468). According to Castells, the Internet's integration of print, oral, and audiovisual modalities into a single system promises an impact on society comparable to that of the alphabet (p. 328), creating new forms of identity and inequality, submerging power in decentered flows, and establishing new forms of social organization.

Moreover, different business industries tends to use the internet for business purposes known as the e-commerce. Electronic commerce or E-commerce is the buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over computer networks. It is an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. E-commerce is the conduct of business commercial communications and management through electronic methods, such as electronic data interchange and automated data collection systems. Electronic commerce may also involve the electronic transfer of information between businesses (EDI). According to Forrester Research (as cited in Kessler, 2003), electronic commerce is a 12.2 billion USD industry, as of 2003.

Key success factors in e-commerce

There are several factors that are critically important to the success of any e-commerce venture. They include:

1. Provide value to customers. This can be done by offering a product or product line that is attractive to potential customers and available at a competitive price.

2. Provide service and performance. This can be done by offering a fast, user-friendly purchasing experience.

3. Provide an attractive site. This can be done by the tasteful use of colour, graphics, animation, photographs, fonts, and white space percentage.

4. Provide an incentive to buy and to return. This can be done with sales promotions like coupons, special offers, and discounts. Cross-linked web sites, and advertising affiliate programs can also be used.

5. Provide personal attention. This can be done by personalized web sites, purchase suggestions, and personalized special offers.

6. Provide a sense of community. This can be done with chat-rooms, message boards, soliciting customer input, and affinity programs.

7. Provide reliability and security. This can be done by parallel servers, fail-safe technology, information encryption, and firewalls.

8. Provide a 360-degree view of the customer relationship. This can be done by ensuring that all employees, suppliers, and partners have a complete view, and the same view, of the customer.

9. Own the customer’s total experience. This can be done by treating any contacts with a customer as part of a total experience, an experience that becomes synonymous with the brand.

10. Streamline business processes. This can be done through re-engineering and information technologies.

11. Let customers help themselves. This can be done by providing a self-serve site that is easy to use without assistance.

12. Help customers do their job. This can be done by providing ample comparative information and good search facilities.

13. Construct a sound business model. If this key success factor would have been included in the textbooks in 2000, many of the dot.coms might not have gone bust.

14. Engineering an electronic value chain in which you focus on a limited number of core competencies.

15. Operate on or near the cutting edge of technology and stay there as technology changes.

16. Create an organization that is alert enough, and agile enough to quickly respond to any changes in the environment.

E-commerce problems

Even if these sixteen key factors are used to devise an exemplary e-commerce strategy, there could still be problems. Sources of problems include:

1. Failure to understand the customer, why they buy, and how they buy. Even a product with a sound value proposition can be a failure if customer habits, expectations, and motivations are not understood. This potential problem could be mitigated with proactive and focused marketing research.

2. Failure to consider the competitive situation. You may be able to construct a viable book e-tailing business model, but do you really want to compete with Amazon.com? This problem can be mitigated with competitor, industry, and market research.

3. Inability to predict environmental reaction. What will competitors do? Will they introduce fighting brands or fighting web sites. Will they supplement their service offering? Will they try to sabotage your site? Will there be price wars? What will the government do? This can be mitigated with a 360 degree continuous environmental scanning system.

4. Over-estimation of resource competence. Can your staff, hardware, software, and processes handle the new strategy? Have you failed to develop new employee and management skills? This can be mitigated with thorough resource planning and employee training.

5. Failure to coordinate. Are your reporting and control relationships adequate? This can be mitigated by an organizational structure that is flat, accountable, and flexible.

6. Failure to obtain senior management commitment. This often results in a failure to obtain sufficient company resources to accomplish the task. This can be mitigated by getting top management involved right from the start.

7. Failure to obtain employee commitment. The strategy is not well explained to employees. Employees are not given the whole picture. This can be mitigated by training and by creating incentives for workers to embrace the strategy.

8. Under-estimation of time requirements. Setting up an e-commerce venture could take considerable time and money, and failure to understand the timing and sequencing of tasks can lead to significant cost overruns. This can be mitigated with critical path, critical chain, or PERT analysis.

9. Failure to follow the plan. Poor follow-through after the initial planning, and no tracking of progress against the plan. This can be mitigated with benchmarking, milestones, variance tracking, and penalties for negative variances and rewards for positive variances and remedial realignments.

Product suitability

Certain products/services are more suitable for online sales and others are more suitable for offline sales. The best purely virtual companies are those that deal with digital products. This includes information storage, retrieval, and modification, music, movies, education, communication, software, photography, and financial transactions. Examples of this type of company are : Schwab, Google, eBay, Paypal, Egghead, and Morpheus.

There are some non-digital products/services that can be successful for virtual marketers. They are products that have a high value to weight ratio, and/or are embarrassing purchases, and/or are typically purchased by people in remote locations, and/or are typically purchased by shut ins.

One product that is both virtual (or if non-virtual, generally high-value) and a potentially embarrassing purchase is pornography and other sex-related products and services; it is unsurprising that these services have been the most profitable e-commerce businesses.

Products that are not suitable for e-commerce include products that have a low value to weight ratio, products that have a smell, taste, or touch component, products that need to be tried on for fit, and products where colour integrity is important.

Acceptance of e-commerce

Consumers have been slower accepting the e-commerce business model that people originally thought. Even in product categories suitable for e-commerce, electronic shopping has been slow to catch on for several reasons including:

· Concerns about security. Many people will not use credit cards over the net due to concerns about theft and fraud.

· Lack of instant gratification with most e-purchases (non-digital purchases). Much of our reward for purchasing a product is the instant gratification of using, and being seen to use the product. This is missing when our purchase does not arrive for days or weeks.

· The problem of access, particularly in poor families and poor countries. Low penetration rates of PC/Internet access in some sectors greatly reduces the potential for e-commerce.

· There is also the social aspect of shopping. Some people enjoy talking to sales staff, other shoppers, or cohorts and this social reward is missing from online shopping.

Synthesis

Present Internet Users and Purposes

Millions of people, ordinary citizens and business executives around the world, use the Internet each day to communicate. As a result, they have lowered their telephone bills. In 1995, there were over 180 countries directly connected to the Internet (Internet Services Group 1995); the number is close to 200 now. The public uses the Internet for discussion groups, special interests, meeting people, sharing ideas, and seeking assistance in a variety of areas. Some people even purchase products on the Internet. Approximately, 25% of the Internet users, 10 million people, have purchased something on-line Business Week (1997a).

Cronin (1996) suggests that the Web breaks down traditional barriers to international commerce, and innovative companies can use it to overcome the limits of size and location and to compete in global markets. However, the number of businesses that already have a home page and use the Internet to reach customers and gain a competitive edge is still small. According to Kagan (1995), in 1994, fewer than 1,000 businesses had a home page on the Web. However, in 1995, the number of U.S. business listings of Web Sites in the Commercial Sites Index was 15,379, with an average of 73 sites added to the list daily (Treese, 1996). Currently, businesses of all sizes are either creating Web sites on the Internet or reserving sites by registering their names for the future.

Sexually Related Uses of the Internet

Pornographers have always been the first to exploit new publishing technologies (e.g., photography, videotape, Internet etc.). It is estimated that the online pornography industry will reach $366 million by 2001 (Sprenger, 1999) although other estimates suggest it is already worth $1 billion ("Blue Money," 1999). In addition, the research company Datamonitor reported that over half of all spending on the Internet is related to sexual activity ("Blue Money," 1999). This includes the conventional (e.g., Internet versions of widely available pornographic magazines like Playboy), the not so conventional (e.g., Internet versions of very hardcore pornographic magazines), and what can only be described as the bizarre (e.g., discussion groups on almost any sexual paraphilia, perversion, and deviation). There are also pornographic picture libraries (commercial and free-access), videos and video clips, live strip-shows, live sex shows, and voyeuristic Web-Cam sites (Griffiths, 2000a).

Before any examination of the addictiveness potential of the Internet and its relationship to sex addiction, Griffiths (2000a) has argued that the first step is to examine all the different ways that the Internet can be used for sexually related purposes. The reasoning behind this is that only some of these activities may be done to excess and/or be potentially addictive. Griffiths (2000a) goes on to outline that the Internet can (and has) been used for a number of diverse activities surrounding sexually motivated behavior. These include the use of the Internet for seeking out sexually related material for educational use, buying or selling sexually related goods for further use offline, visiting and/or purchasing goods in online virtual sex shops, seeking out material for entertainment/masturbatory purposes for use online, seeking out sex therapists, and seeking out sexual partners for an enduring relationship. Other sexually motivated uses of the Internet include seeking out sexual partners for a transitory relationship (i.e., escorts, prostitutes, swingers) via online personal advertisements/"lonely hearts" columns, escort agencies, and/or chat rooms; seeking out individuals who then become victims of sexually related Internet crime (online sexual harassment, cyberstalking, pedophilic "grooming" of children); engaging in and maintaining online relationships via e-mail and/or chat rooms; exploring gender and identity roles by swapping gender or creating other personas and forming online relationships; and digitally manipulating images on the Internet for entertainment and/or masturbatory purposes (e.g., celebrity fake photographs where heads of famous people are superimposed onto someone else's naked body).

It is evident from these types of sex-related Internet behavior that very few of these are likely to be potentially excessive, addictive, obsessive, and/or compulsive. The most likely behaviors include the use of online pornography for masturbatory purposes, engaging in online relationships, and sexually related Internet crime (e.g., cyberstalking). Before examining the implications of these behaviors, the next section briefly overviews the concept of Internet addiction more generally.

Inequality in Content Providers’ Access to Attention

Sociologists should be concerned not only with inequality in access to the Internet, but with inequality in access to the attention of those who use the Internet. By dramatically reducing the cost of the replication and distribution of information, the Internet has the potential to create arenas for more voices than any other previous communication medium by putting product dissemination within the reach of the individual.

Information abundance creates a new problem, however: attention scarcity (Goldhaber 1997). Content creators can only reach large audiences if online gatekeepers--Web services that categorize online information and provide links and search facilities to other sites--channel users to them (Hargittai 2000b). Yet Internet traffic is highly concentrated: 80% of site visits are to just .5% of Web sites (Waxman 2000a). As was the case with broadcast media, the growth and commercialization of the Internet has been accompanied by a commodification of attention. A rapidly evolving mosaic of search engines and point-of-entry sites compete for dominance (NUA 2000a), playing a pivotal role in channeling users' attention toward some contents and away from others (Hargittai 2000b)

During the late 1990s, entrepreneurs developed comprehensive and strongly branded "portals"--Web sites containing search engines, category guides, and various shopping and information services--to match users and content. Such sites now account for one in four of the most visited destinations of the Web (Waxman 2000b). The search engines they feature are often biased in their identification and, especially, ranking of sites in response to user queries (Introna & Nissenbaum 2000). The effects of bias are compounded by the tendency of engine users to employ simple search terms and to satisfies by terminating searches at the first acceptable site. [A 1998 analysis of almost one billion queries on the Altavista search engine revealed that 77% of sessions included but one query and 85% of users viewed only the first screen of search results (Silverstein et al 1998)]. Thus, Web destinations that are displayed prominently on portal sites or ranked high by search engines are likely to monopolize the attention of all but the most sophisticated and committed Internet users. Understanding the processes by which such display opportunities and ranks are awarded is an important research tack.

Impact on Time Use and Community: Social Isolation or Social Capital Formation

Initial enthusiasts anticipated that the Internet would boost efficiency, making people more productive and enabling them to avoid unnecessary transportation by accomplishing online tasks like banking, shopping, library research, even socializing online. The results (less stress, more time, new online contacts) would make individuals more fulfilled and build social capital for society at large. More recently, two studies have suggested that the Internet may induce anomie and erode social capital by enabling users to retreat into an artificial world (Kraut et al 1998, Nie & Erbring 2000). In this section, we explore research on what Internet users do with their time, how the Internet affects their well-being, and how the Internet influences communities, both real and virtual.

Impact on Politics: Renewed Public Sphere or Electronic Battleground?

In the political domain we again find utopians and doomsayers at odds. Enthusiasts find early evidence of a re-engaged, more deliberative, more equitable political community (Browning 1996, Hill & Hughes 1998, Negroponte 1995). Skeptics foresee the re-emergence of an unresponsive commercial sphere dominated by the usual corporate players--but with an increased capacity to invade the privacy of individual citizens (Beniger 1996, Lessig 1999). Most research suggests that effects thus far have been mixed and modest.

Drawing conclusions at such early stages of technology diffusion before the emergence of stable norms is risky because it is difficult to disentangle: 1) the unique characteristics of early adopters from the characteristics of the medium in question; 2) the primitive limitations of the early Web from the technology's mature characteristics; and 3) the Web's explosive growth from other political trends (Rogers 1995, Bimber 1999). As with other topics, the literature about politics on the Internet has progressed through three stages: unjustifiable euphoria, abrupt and equally unjustifiable skepticism, and gradual realization that Web-based human interaction really does have unique and politically significant properties.

Empirical research on mass political knowledge in industrial democracies, and particularly in the United States, has drawn heavily on the 'information cost' perspective of Downs (1957) and Schumpeter (1947) to explain why the public is so poorly informed. Because it takes time and energy to seek out, interpret, and remember political information, it may be rational to free-ride on the civic attentiveness of others. The political promise of the Internet is that it significantly lowers the behavioral costs of finding, storing, and communicating specific and personally relevant political information at convenient, timely intervals.

The literature reveals, however, that after controlling for education and political interest, there is little evidence of an effect of Internet use on political knowledge. Those who seek political information online are generally well informed to begin with, politically oriented, and heavy users of other media (Bimber 2000, Johnson & Kaye 1998). At present, the Internet supplements and complements rather than replaces traditional sources of political information (Pew 1998, 1999, Robinson et al 2000b). A June 2000 survey revealed that 33% of US adults (and 46% of those under thirty) go online for news at least once a week, compared to 20% in 1998, and 15% they say do so every day. About half say they seek out political news, fewer than report that they look for weather, technology, business, and sports news (Howard et al forthcoming). In some cases they access news not readily available through print or broadcast media, but often the Web is a supplementary medium through which conventional news organizations distribute information available through other means.

The economic and psychological dynamics of Web-based human communication, however, are potentially distinct enough from those of traditional print and broadcast news media that in time we may see evidence of an Internet effect. For example, news sites often provide interactive links that encourage users to "send a copy of this article to a friend or colleague." The capacity for horizontal interpersonal communication, to rebroadcast a news article with personal commentary, enhances the capacity for discussion, engagement, and the two-step flow that serves as the critical antidote to anomic mass communication (Komhauser 1968). Evolving third-voice technologies would permit users to unilaterally convert every mass-medium Web site into an open public discussion (Dibbell 1999). Discussion groups on the Web at present lack the selective, highly edited character of letters to the editor and citizen op-eds. But though they may not achieve the ideal of deliberative discourse envisioned by Habermas (1981), Elster 1998), they would appear to be a step in that direction.

There is great concern about the political malaise and disengagement presumably reflected in low voter turnouts in US national elections. Will reduced costs of gathering political information produce higher voting rates? Probably not, due to the complex and tangled influences of multiple historical, cultural and economic trends, which render bivariate analyses of relationships between media use and electoral participation ill advised. Schudson (1998) points out that US electoral participation rates were highest in the second half of the nineteenth century, when citizens were generally uninformed and uneducated, the media were limited and sensationalistic, and quality of public debate was largely undistinguished. Bimber (2000) argues that political impact derives less from the character of the medium than from the character of information and the day-to-day culture of its use. The successful Jesse Ventura candidacy in Minnesota is widely cited as an example of grass-roots Internet populism; but in that case t he Net was primarily used to organize the already engaged, not to mobilize disaffected or uninterested voters (Stromer-Galley 2000). Online financial contributions and voting online by the already politically active may prove more significant in the long run (Mintz 2000).

Can the Web make a real difference?

It is clear that the Internet significantly lowers entry barriers and other Downsian cost factors for participation in the electronic public sphere. Bimber finds that many of the distortions of group discussion resulting from dominant personalities and group dynamics are reproduced in cyberspace, but he concludes that virtual political space (notably Usenet-style threaded discussion groups) has its place as a significant supplement to, if not replacement for, the face-to-face discussions of Habermas' idealized nineteenth century salon (Bimber 2000, Hill & Hughes 1998, Schneider 1996). Lowering the economic costs to initiate and sustain an accessible political voice--compare a teenager's bedroom-based Web site to the cost of sustaining a printed magazine or broadcasting facility--can lower access barriers for minority voices, as well.

Skeptics argue that the commercial incentives of advertising-based media may lead ultimately to an Internet culturally indistinguishable from modern commercial television (Davis 1998, Margolis & Resnick 1999, Rheingold 1993). This debate is particularly interesting in the case of Web-based political campaigning in the United States, where by 2000, most candidates had their own Web sites, many with detailed issue and policy information unavailable through traditional media (Schneider 2000b). Will such diverse sites attract sufficient traffic to sustain themselves? Or will dominant commercial portals like AOL or specialized startups like voter.com dominate attention, paying for access to the public sphere through political advertising? As of this writing the jury is out, but researchers are actively studying elite and mass behavior (Schneider 2000a).

The Politics of the Internet

A final note: It may be that the battle for control of the Net and for dominance in the electronic marketplace of ideas will prove to be the most fruitful arena for sociological inquiry. The tension between political ideals of openness and the strong economic incentives to sustain and protect scarcity and its corresponding economic return should sustain significant scholarship in this domain for years to come (Lessig 1999, Neuman et al 1998, Shapiro 1999).

Impact on Organizations: Flexible Networks or Panopticons?

Some management writers depict information technology as transforming organizations: replacing hierarchical bureaucracy with flat, networked structures in which local initiative supplants authoritative command; and replacing formal organizations themselves with "network organizations" in which agency is interstitial and strategy constantly renegotiated (Tapscott 1999). Others suggest that digital telecommunications may increase management control by permitting unprecedented degrees of surveillance (Zuboff 1989). In this section, we focus primarily on organizations' use of the public Internet, rather than on communications networks internal to the firm (the use of which is reviewed in Sproull & Kiesler 1991, Wellman et al 1996, and O'Mahoney & Barley 1999).

Little research bears directly on these claims, and what there is finds limited effects for three reasons. First, authors who make the strongest claims often conflate different types of digital technology, including workplace applications, local area networks, and the Internet. The Internet is less central to some notable organizational trends (e.g., the shrinkage of middle management) than computerization of internal functions (Board on Science, Technology & Economic Policy 1999).

Second, many structural changes associated with the "networked firm" predate the rise of information technologies alleged to have caused them (Powell 2001, Castells 1996). Although some argue that the Internet causes large firms to devolve into loosely integrated production networks by reducing information and transaction costs (Brynjolfsson et al 1994), the move toward network organizations was under way before the Internet became popular. (The Internet, though not determinant, is important. Although network forms emerged in response to competitive environments, new information technologies contributed to their rapid development (Castells 1996.)

Third, technology's effects reflect not its inherent potential, as futurists assume, but active choices that are shaped by technology owners' perceived interests, existing organizational structures and routines, and by cultural norms (O'Mahoney & Barley 1999, Orlikowski & Iacono 2000). Many traditional firms heavily constrain use of email and the Internet, especially by clerical and service employees, and such firms often implement systems that facilitate surveillance rather than enabling flexible, decentralized interaction (Zuboff 1989, Wellman et al 1996, Frenkel et al 1999).

Telecommuting, once predicted to rise exponentially, is a good example. Of a national sample of 1050 workers interviewed in late 1999, 41% believed they could work effectively from home, but only 10% reported their employers provided that option (and 9% reported doing so at least once a week) (Heldritch Center 2000). Other evidence suggests that most employees use home Internet connections to supplement hours at the workplace, not to substitute for them (O'Mahony & Barley: 131).

Impact on Culture: Bountiful Diversity, Hypersegmentation, or Massification?

Many individuals feared that the original mass media (general-interest magazines, radio, and television) would inexorably "massify" taste, as profit-seeking firms produced only those homogeneous and banal programs or texts with the greatest audience appeal (Shils 1963). Since 1980, changes in consumer demand have combined with new media technologies to segment markets and differentiate cultural goods, enabling individuals and groups to individualize their media habits. As an "interconnected network of audio, video, and electronic text communication that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and mass communications and between public and private communications" (Neuman 1991, p. 12), the Internet seems designed to take these trends to their logical conclusion.

Not surprisingly, early observers viewed the new technology as profoundly liberating, opening up outlets for the creative energies of people of every taste and persuasion (Barlow 1996). Because posting information on the Web is so inexpensive, the technology's enthusiasts believed it would virtually eliminate barriers to entry in fields like music recording, book publishing, and even filmmaking. In this view, the Internet would democratize the flow of information, supplanting top-down dependence on traditional news and media organizations with bottom-up sharing among consumers themselves.

Conclusion

This paper reveals that internet has several implications to the society. Based on the details gathered from related materials, I found out that Internet has a great impact when it comes to education, politics, business, and to the modern society. Based on the gathered information, the use of Internet in business play a significant role since Internet is one of the great factor or tool to use for business promotions or advertisement. However, the research also reveals that some business fall down because of the Internet hackers. Too much of the basic research has been undertaken by nonacademic survey organizations, yielding theoretically unmotivated description at best, and technically flawed and/or proprietarily-held data at worst. The relatively few analysts who study the Internet have focused disproportionately on virtual communities, a worthy topic, but not the only one. And in that area, as well as in research on the Internet's impact on inequality, politics, organizations, and culture, we need to develop explanatory models that distinguish between different modes of Internet use and that tie behavior directly to social and institutional context.

On the other hand, if Internet sex addiction is to become a viable term there must be scientific evidence to support it, clarification of the criteria accepted by all, and quantification of its occurrence. At present the question of whether Internet sex addiction is fundamentally different from other, more traditional forms of sex addiction cannot be answered until the existence of more empirical research evidence. However, it does appear to be the case that Internet sex is a new medium of expression that may increase participation because of key factors, such as perceived anonymity and disinhibition. Moreover, if Internet sex addiction is a viable concept, there are also implications for treatment. At present, treatment programs for sexual addiction include patient, outpatient, and aftercare support, and self-help groups. They may also offer family counseling programs, support groups, and educational workshops for addicts and their families to help them understand the facets of belief and family life that are part of the addiction. Unlike recovering alcoholics who must abstain from drinking for life, sexual addicts are led back into a normal, healthy sex life much in the way those suffering from eating disorders must relearn healthy eating patterns. However, at present there are very few outlets for the treatment of Internet sex addiction, and like sex itself, total abstinence of computer use is probably not the best approach in the long term given the prevalence of computers and Internet use in everyday life. Clearly there is a need for establishment and evaluation of treatment strategies for online compulsivity/addiction.

Importantly, businesses that might find the Internet useful and profitable include companies that usually advertise by mail order and those that wish to expand their existing services or products to more locations. The Internet may provide a cost-effective way for many small businesses to reach a larger audience and receive timely feedback (e.g., market research, sales transactions, etc.) relative to new products and services. The types of businesses that can be profitable via the Internet are those that cannot afford the vast advertising needed to reach potential customers. They may offer a variety of products and services such as customer support, computer sales, Web page development, training manuals, homemade jelly, crafts, art work, wedding services, catering, etc. The Internet provides 24-hour service to advertise products and services, and via professionally developed pages a small company can compete on an equal basis with the larger companies.

Research has suffered, as well, from a disproportionate emphasis on individuals, implicitly treating the nature of the Internet itself as fixed. This is regrettable because this protean technology's character and effects will reflect the outcome of ongoing struggles among powerful economic and political actors. Yet few individuals have examined the Internet's institutional structure, industrial organization, or political economy. Some individuals are doing important work; but unless their numbers grow, a magnificent opportunity to build and test theories of social and technical change may go unexploited.

On the other hand, many small and large businesses are already using the Internet for promoting products, customer service, and for business transactions. The Internet is here to stay, and one way or another most businesses will feel the need to have some kind of involvement with it. The number of businesses on the Internet will increase as well as the number of potential customers. Advances in technology are making the Internet more accessible to consumers and businesses, but it is not likely to replace traditional purchasing methods yet. Most people still like to see and touch products they want to purchase. Nevertheless, companies using Web sites to promote their products and provide customer service and communicate with their employees will certainly have advantages over those that do not.

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