The network information age to our life
Name:Liang Pengju Student ID: s08009
Research paper supervisor:Dr.Sekou Conde
Marxist philosophy Minzu University of China
2008-2009 Academic Year
Abstract:
There are subtle, complex changes taking place in human communication, thought, and relationships within online communication and information communities. The internet is part of these changes, enabling new forms of communication and information delivery, and bringing up new associations among people. One challenge for our society is to find a solution to the questions raised by these changes. How might our culture, society, and communication patterns change as a result of widespread internet use? Personal Computers have become personal activity tools, not personal productivity tools. No one is predicting the death of the Personal Computer. If there is only one certainty next year, it’s the internet. It’s not a question of whether the internet will continue to grow. That’s sure. As the Web alters communication and information patterns the resulting change raises issues our society must face for individual, group, and societal responsibility. Moral and legal issues will arise in the areas of individual behavior, societal responsibility for issues of access and information literacy, and the now relation-ships, communications, and thought patterns the Web promotes.
Key words:
The network lifestyle, The internet economy, Electronic commerce, Online piracy, Online fraud
I. Introduction
Personal Computers have become personal activity tools, not personal productivity tools. No one is predicting the death of the Personal Computer. If there is only one certainty next year, it’s the internet. It’s not a question of whether the internet will continue to grow. That’s sure.
Now think of our pre-Internet communications systems as sorts of protozoa.
What we’re witnessing today in the realm of cyberspace-the online reformulation of everything from the way we play and learn to how we shop and trade stocks-may represent no less a world-transforming change than the spectacular burst of creation so long ago.
The fact is that the IT world will continue to revolve around the internet, and even more strongly.
Offering a cheaper choice is the feature of the internet’s success. In turn, the cost advantages that the internet provides have resulted in the popularity of corporate intranets. This trend will continue. But as in the case of e-commerce, security will remain a major concern among enterprises.
It will be a reflex to turn to the web for shopping, education, entertainment and communication, just as it is natural today to pick up the telephone to talk to someone.
Shopping on the internet is becoming increasingly popular. People can shop for a variety of products on the internet. The main disadvantage of internet shopping is that you cannot actually see the products you are buying or check their quality. Also, many people enjoy shopping in the city and miss the chance to talk to friends. Some people are worried about paying for using credit cards, so internet companies are now finding ways to make on-line payment safe.
So with agencies founded to protect us falling down on the job, and hugely popular auction sites becoming breeding grounds for systematic swindles, is there any hope? Bottom line: maybe someday, e-tailors can feel comfortable with the effectiveness of the fight against online fraud. But for now, it’s time to keep working.
II. Body
There are subtle, complex changes taking place in human communication, thought, and relationships within online communication and information communities. The internet is part of these changes, enabling new forms of communication and information delivery, and bringing up new associations among people. One challenge for our society is to find a solution to the questions raised by these changes. How might our culture, society, and communication patterns change as a result of widespread internet use?
Vannevar Bush, in an article called” As We Think” in the July, 1945 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, described his vision of a device for helping the human mind cope with information. [1]Bush observed that previous inventions expanded human abilities to deal with the physical world, but not floods of information and knowledge. Bush’s vision was for a system of information, which could link documents in” trials” that could be saved and shared with others.[2]
The Web fulfills Bush’s dream in many respects. It can link information in useful ways, giving rise to new insights-transformation of information to knowledge that Bush described in terms of applications in law, medicine, chemistry, and history.
In addition to fulfilling many needs of human intellectual activities identified by Bush, it can also fill the” media gap” which is defined by Tesoro Tomaita. In his essay, “The New Electronic Media and Their Place in the Information Market of the future,” Tomita observed a pattern in the way traditional communications methods were used to reach audience. Methods such as letters, telegrams, and conversation reach a very small audience in amounts of time ranging from immediate (telegram, telephone) to days (letters). The mass media such as radio, television, newspapers, books, and movies reach a large audience in amounts of time ranging from immediate (radio, television) to weeks (magazines) to months (books). But the middle ranging from immediate to a day-is a gap filled by few traditional media. This is too small an audience for mass media and too large an audience for personally controlled (traditional) media. Yet this is the audience and time delay gap that many forms of computer-mediated communication fill, including the Web.[3]
The Web offers immediate delivery of information to specialized audiences. Before the invention of computer networks, an individual could not easily seek out several hundred others interested in a specialized hobby or area of interest, when those people were spread worldwide. [4]No traditional media offered a personally available means to accomplish this. But the web does fill this “media gap,” and this feature is certainly a contributor to the web’s popularity and growth.
Associative linking promotes relationships among people in addition to relationships among information. Experts in a particular field create pools of knowledge on their home page, when other people link to these pages, groups of experts form. These groups might be based on information or on hobbies, interests, culture, or political leanings. The result is that “electronic tribe” can form that gather people in associations that could not be possible any other way.[5]
Today, the internet rapid development, has brought the huge change for ours life and economy.
A. The networked economy explodes
Imagine that you are one of the numerous protozoa inhabiting the planet’s oceans more than 500 million years ago. Your single-celled ilk, microscopic bacteria and algae, have ruled the primordial seas for almost 3 billion years.
And then something wild starts to happen: a dazzling diversification of life into multi-celled forms during a geologically brief time period that scientists call the Cambrian Explosion. Nearly all the major groups of animals around today had their start in that outbreak of life.[6]
Now think of our pre-Internet communications systems as sorts of protozoa.
What we’re witnessing today in the realm of cyberspace-the online reformulation of everything from the way we play and learn to how we shop and trade stocks-may represent no less a world-transforming change than the spectacular burst of creation so long ago.[7]
But there exists one notable difference: the primeval organisms did not have a guide-book to inform them about what to expect and how to deal with some of the fabulous things to come. We do, in the recently released New Rules for the New Economy by Kevin Kelly, a founding editor of wired magazine[8].
“the key premise of this book is that the principles governing the world of the soft-the world of intangibles, of media, of software, and of services-will soon command the world of the hard- the world of reality, of atoms, of objects, of steel and oil, and the hard work done by the sweat of brows,” Kelly writes.[9]
“Driving this economic transformation is the combination of shrinking computers and expanding communications,” he says, adding: “We have seen only the beginnings of the anxiety, loss, excitement, and gains that many people will experience as our world shifts to a new highly technical planetary economy.”[10]
Where it’s likely headed, in Kelly’s words, is “upside down”.
Chew, for example, on the idea that “the surest way to smartness is through massive dumbness.” What that means in essence is that tiny computer chips, though relatively “dumb” on their own, can be added to billions of ordinary objects and, thereby yield substantial economic benefits.[11]
In a world of digital economy, as Kelly correctly points out, “power comes from abundance.” In what Kelly terms “ the new order”, the law of plentitude kicks in, leading a sophisticated company such as [...]
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