Internet : How To Use It Properly?

Technology is something that was created to make human's life become easier. It still continues to evolve and develop along with the times. One of the technological developments is internet. Internet has turned our existence upside down. It has already become something we can't keep away from our daily lifes. In almost everything we do, we use internet. Ordering a pizza, buying clothes, sending a picture, sharing every moment to the world, video calling, downloading a movie, listening to music, watching TV, finding any news, learning something, and many more. However, does it really only has a positive side? What about the negative one?

According to the Ministry of Communication and Information of Republic of Indonesia, there are more than 82 million of internet users from the age of 16 to 64, and still keep increasing everyday. They usually spend the average time of 8 hours 52 minutes surfing on the internet. The most favored activities are social medias and apps. Currently, there are over 170 million users who are active in social media apps and they spend more than 3 hours on them. Apart from that, the other activities are also watching television (either streaming or broadcast), reading news from media companies and listening to music on a streaming site. Audio-based contents, such as podcast and radio, are the least accessible contents for internet users.

It's not too surprising actually, the internet has been proven to bring the development of human being to a better direction. We can get many advantages by using an internet for easier job. Furthermore, it provides effective communication for people without seeing each other. It also improves business interactions and transactions, exchanges information and materials online, reaches many educations from online resources, buys something without going anywhere, easily access the latest news from any part of the world, and many more.

Unfortunately, the internet is not always bring its advantages. Sometimes we don't realize it, we as internet users must have felt things that were beneficial or vice versa; which felt detrimental to us from using the internet. The negative impacts of internet also includes many things, such as; the easy accessability of inappropriate website that isn't suitable for any ages, the addiction to social networks can disrupt an individual life, and some 'bad people' are even using the internet to hack into someone's database to steal something. Additionally, a person can easily type everything without considering other people's feeling. In worst part, the others can misuse the internet for spreading hate and terrorism, making scandal, propagate a slander, and many dangerous scenarios.

Internet has already become the best thing that have ever happened to human society in recent years. It has a major impact on many people and touches every aspect of our lives, from the way we communicate to the way we think and how we learn. Internet has made it possible for people to access tons of digitized information, enhance communication, and expand education space; as well as the cons about it like proliferation of cyber-crimes. Apart from its positive and negative sides, it's been proven that internet makes people's lives become easier. Whether it's better or not, it's always based on how we used it.

Author : Imelda Bajetha 311201041