I have decided on a topic, one that I only thought of this past week. Being that so much of my time is spent online, my topic will be the impact of Internet on human interaction and connection. Social media will be a central part of my research. I want to look at how YouTube allows people to share experiences with the entire world, how Twitter connects celebrity and superstar personalities with average people, how Facebook transfers people's entire lives online.
The scope of my topic may extend further than social media. Google, Wikipedia, and Yahoo! Answers all changed the way we research, learn, and teach. These sites are integral parts of the internet that impacted human behavior. Libraries, professors, and books are becoming foreign to younger generations because of these internet tools.
Three other things I want to touch upon are 1)Websites such as eHarmony that directly impact people's lives 2)Websites such as Amazon and eBay that have changed the way we shop and interact with local stores 3)The limitations of Internet interactions by governments: Good or bad?
There are many questions that I am looking to answer through this topic. To what extent has the Internet changed human behavior? Is this impact worldwide or just concentrated in certain privileged countries? Will this 'revolution' continue at the rate that it has? Has the Internet brought a positive change for us? To what extent must we remove ourselves from it? What are some instances where the Internet has changed people's lives? The list of questions I want to research keeps on going, but I'll stop here for now. Hopefully this topic works out and leads me to many interesting discoveries, debates, and facts.
I decided to comment on Ben Katz’s unique topic choice. He wants to research the impact of the Internet on human interaction and connection. The growing role that the Internet is playing in our lives has both positive and negative aspects that Ben can dissect. For example, the Internet provides us with a tremendous amount of resources and allows people to communicate in a quick and effective way. I am currently participating in a group that just created a website where volunteers can sign up to help individuals in need in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. (It’s called sundays4sandy.org. Please visit the site!) However, the Internet is also one of the biggest distractions in our lives. On a frequent basis, I find that people who are “engaged” in a conversation fail to respond because they are too focused browsing the web on their smartphone. In fact, a recent study shows that the quality of discussion in a college classroom decreases as the amount of students who use their computers to “take notes” increases.
ReplyDeleteBen mentioned that libraries, professors, and books are becoming foreign to younger generations because of search engines. Perhaps analyzing the sales of books, postage stamps, newspapers, magazines and the like over the past 10 years may demonstrate how reliant society has become on the Internet. Because bullying is such a popular issue nowadays, I encourage Ben to incorporate cyber bullying into his paper. Ben selected an intriguing topic and I wish him the best of luck.