Impact of the digital age
Emergent electronic resources and the internet have introduced a lot of excitement by transforming the way people learn and communicate. There are quite a number of benefits that the digital age has brought to the lives of people. With the introduction of the internet, the learning and teaching environment has radically changed. The reference tools that are widely used are electronic databases, and these have made literature for theology, religion and other humanity courses available online. The digital age comes with both positive and negative impacts, which will be discussed at length.
Positive Impacts
It is true that digital resources and the internet have had a dramatic impact in the learning environment. The internet has made it possible for students to study their courses online on the websites. The costs for technology are dropping continuously, and there are more electronic resources available online for remote students. This is making the students shun from the books in the libraries.
Internet is available in almost all libraries in most institutions. With the internet, students can easily conduct research online without having to read books in the library. The students can use search engines like Google, Bing and Ask to conduct research and find answers to questions that they may not understand. Students can also work from home and do not have to come to school to do the work because everything is available online. This means that students can also do online courses and do not have to register in institutions. Students can hand in their work to their supervisors online without having to print the work. The lecturers and teachers have an easy job of storing files without having to print them out. The lecturers can view the student’s assignments and make corrections with online software that help with the grading. There are online software like Grammarly.com that is used to correct grammatical mistakes and checking for plagiarisms. This way, students will hand in work that has not been plagiarized because there is online software that will detect plagiarized work. This means that students will hand in genuine work to their lecturers. These examples indicate how the internet has transformed the learning environment from the traditional pen and ink to the modern typed worked.
Negative Impacts
The information that is easily accessible to students may make the students lazy. Since the students can get almost all information that they need to conduct a research, the students may take advantage and manipulate research. There are some researches that require students to conduct interviews. The student may decide and look for information online or get samples of online interviews and manipulate the information.
Credibility of such information
This information may not even be credible. This makes the students lazy because they will not go to the grounds to perform the actual interview. Since information is available at the click of a mouse, thanks to the powerful search engines like Google, the student will collect information from unreliable sources in the internet.
Assessing the value of Information obtained from the internet
Some websites are always designed for business purposes and not academics. Websites that have numerous commercials and adverts that run in them are often not meant for academic purposes. These websites are numerous and are available when one clicks the mouse to search info. In fact, these commercial websites are always the first ones to appear. Students who are not familiar with Google scholar are bound to use such commercial websites to conduct their researches. Students should avoid conducting their research with websites that have commercials or adverts.
Digital Divide
Digital divide or difference means the difference in accessibility of information amongst groups of people, which may be a difference in accessibility in developed and developing countries, businesses, households or individuals. There are some locations where the internet may be slow, and there are other locations where the internet may be fast. Internet connectivity also depends on the appliance that one is using. Some mobile devices like the smart phone, which have a fast internet connectivity compared to the ordinary mobile devices.
Week four
The role of social media
Digital technology has also improved the way people communicate and socialize around the world. There are social networks like Face book, Twitter and Linked In, where people can meet to chat and interact amongst each other. Social networks create grounds for long distance communication and networking. People can access the social networks from mobile devices, desktop computers, iPads and laptops at the comfort of their rooms. A part from improving communication amongst people, the digital age, has also improved the way people do business in the modern world. Social networks are known to attract a large audience online. The most popular social network is Face book, which has approximately 900 million users. With such a large audience available in Face book, companies often take advantage of the numbers to sell their products. This means that companies will always scheme by creating their own pages to market their products for the users. With such groups in Face book, the companies can interact with their clients and see the comments of their clients. If a company has several likes on its page, it means that the clients like the services or products of that company. This is a perfect example of how businesses maintain a good relationship with their clients.
Advantages of Social media
Social media enhances open communication and this brings delivery and discovery of information. It also gives employees the opportunity to share links, ask questions, post news and discuss ideas. It offers the chances to improve business contacts. This is evident in the adverting columns that are reserved for companies that may want to advertise their products online. Social media has a wide audience and this makes them effective and useful in passing info or making adverts. Increases the market research and directs people with similar interests to the desired websites.
Social media like You Tube can be used to share videos. People can share videos online and parties of interest may search the videos on social media. Music lovers benefit the most from these videos. The music lovers may not have to look for the videos or buy them from supermarkets. People can also watch trailers of their favorite movies in You Tube. This is beneficial for the movie producers because they get to interact with the fans before releasing the movies in theatres. This helps in developing hype amongst the audience, which can lead to higher gross of the films worldwide.
Disadvantages of Social media
Social media create the foundations for gossiping and evil talk. This is quite true for political organizations and their supporters. Hate speech is quite common in social media and this can insight violence. People can also organize revolts in social media. They can post their plans of attacking a rival political party. These are examples of ways in which social media can insight people and result to war or violence.
Social media also encourages laziness amongst employees. Some people are so addicted to Face book that they can forget to do their work in the office. This addiction to Face book can make companies collapse because the workers will not work effectively.
Social media hacking is a common practice. Some tech gurus can decide to hack into other people’s profiles and steal info. Some people can also hack into their friend’s accounts and use their profiles to pass false information about them.
While the companies can use the social media to draw the attention of their clients, it can be a disadvantage if people tarnish the image of such companies. If someone decides to post something bad about the company, for instance involvement in fraud, people may avoid the company.
The pictures that are used in social media can be used to humiliate others. For instance, someone may decide and post the image of a naked person to humiliate the person. Others may even decide to post obscene videos like sex recordings on social media.
Once people have known the advantages and disadvantages of using social media, they can take advantage of benefits like advertising products in social media. People who recognize the disadvantages of social media will be cautious of how they post their pictures in social media.
