| The basic responsibility
of the media such as the Internet is to act as
a communication channel. Whatever be the modes
in which the media is used, its dependability
is determined by the efficiency with which it
can convey the sentiments of the people who use
it to express their ideas. Over the years, the
media has changed in type and form, and the influence
of technology has been making it faster and cheaper.
Modern technology has allowed man to concentrate
on other things than merely memorizing data. Of
course, it is debatable whether the new media
technologies have enhanced or diminished the mental
and verbal capacities of the human kind. The Internet
is certainly one of those modern information tools
that encourage us to imbibe what we see, more
than making us think and analyze what we see.
This paper will argue that the biggest disadvantage
of technology like the Internet is that it reduces
the comprehensive and analytical skills of children
whose creativity is often stifled by modern technologies.
The advent of the internet has changed the way
in which technology was being used to support
businesses as well as education worldwide. Little
did people realize that the internet would establish
itself as a powerful facilitator of the needs
of the common man in such a short period of time.
In its initial phase of development, the Internet
was a medium that was considered as a convenient
information tool, which could help people to communicate
efficiently at a fraction of the costs that were
involved in using conventional methods of communication
[Gomolski, 2001] However, it soon became evident
that the Internet was here to promote an entirely
different paradigm of communication: one that
is alarmingly lower in quality and content.
One important change that the internet has in
its character, which is different from other media,
is the fact that the internet never seems to run
out of favor with people who have been using it
for a long time. Unlike the TV and the radio,
which loses its novelty, the Internet has been
successful in captivating its audience. This could
be because of the sheer amount of information,
its dynamic nature and the ever increasing number
of services that are being added to it. It seems
that the services that are constantly being added
to the internet have enhanced its appeal among
its users. The internet has become less of an
entertainer and more of a daily tool that cannot
be sidelined by anyone.
In the educational sector, the internet has in
a big way extended the reach of universities and
reports suggest that more people are able to pursue
the long distance courses offered by many educational
institutions. The long distance learning process
which depended a lot on video cassettes and audio,
emphasized the distance between the student and
the teacher. Today, the internet has significantly
bridged this gap and students can interact with
their teachers as well as other students in real
time. The ever changing technology also ensures
that geographical distances need not be a constraint
for people to interact in real time. The best
part of this is that all these happen at a fraction
of the cost of other technologies. In addition
students can scan through courses offered and
apply to their favorite colleges all through the
net. [Bonisteel, 2000]
However, the role of the Internet has not been
limited as a facilitator of education. It has
adversely affected the quality of education in
many ways. For example the Internet has reduced
the time that children spend on reading. With
multimedia becoming ubiquitous, children experience
more through their eyes than through fertile imagination.
Audrey D. McCray, Sharon Vaughn, La Vonne I. Neal
(2001) suggest that children who are not taught
well to read in their early years may have reading
difficulties and comprehension problems even in
their high school years. In fact, many experts
believe that the early initiative taken by parents
or teachers to make children read, will help them
to identify whether a child has inherent learning
difficulties, which may then be treated. However,
if the problem is untraced early in life, it could
lead to bigger problems for which the child is
almost always criticized [Wilson, 1999]
In the modern times, children and adults ignore
reading because of the advent of the new media
like the TV and the Internet, which are faster
and require less intellectual contribution from
the viewer. The role of the internet has been
tremendous in this respect and is considered to
be one of the main reasons that have caused a
general decrease in the student's ability to read
and write well. Although the multitude of its
uses, presents us the advantages of the technology
revolution, the advantages actually have been
effectively masking the negative aspects of the
internet and its terrible social effects. Research
has found out that employers may in fact benefit
by the growth of the internet. "According
to the preliminary results of a new study conducted
by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative
Study of Society (SIQSS), Americans, as a result
of growing Internet use, spend less time with
friends and family, less time shopping in stores
or watching television, and more time working
for their employers at home ... all without cutting
back their hours in the office." [Fridman,
2000]. This highlights the social effects of the
Internet, which seems to be reducing the quality
time that people spend with their children, which
in turn erodes their academic capacities
Teachers and parents are also worried at the fact
that children, particularly the younger children
are not trained to view the content of the Internet
in a critical fashion and consider that whatever
they see is real. This lack of critical analysis
makes them follow blindly whatever they see on
the internet. This would lead to eventuality in
which the student doe not have any creative contribution
in his / her life [Aiex , 1989].
Perhaps one of the most devastating effects on
language due to technology is the use of emails
in which language is given the least respect and
regard. When we contrast the habit of letter writing
which was encouraged in schools in older times
to the increasing tendency of children to correspond
through e-mails, we find that language and sentence
structure is the foremost casualty. It is unfortunate
that the internet by convention does not require
e-mails to be formal even if the correspondence
is happening between formal counterparts. As result,
errors in spelling, grammar and sentence structure
is tolerated even in formal and business correspondence.
In contrast, a letter written in paper is first
scanned for spelling mistakes and grammatical
mistakes, which could be used to tarnish the person's
language and general skills. Hence, letter writing
was a formal manner of presenting a person's or
a company's qualities that reflected throughout
the letter. However, e-mails are just informally
grouped words that convey carelessness and sloppy
language. The extensive use of emoticons and abbreviations
in place of full words has further damaged the
literary skills of people. Today most youngsters
do not care to write full words and use short
abbreviations and emoticons many of which the
older generation may not even understand. The
lack of formality in letters and business correspondence
has made most e-mails ambiguous and full of errors.
The mass media also discourages the reading and
the writing habit in children and adults. School
curriculums also promote extensive use of the
internet and hence allow students to submit typewritten
papers as part of the curriculum. So, most of
the students have good typing skills than good
writing skills. The disadvantage of using computer
software for writing reports and educational projects
surfaces when the software catches and corrects
all the mistakes: both spelling and grammatical,
and rarely provide the students with an opportunity
to correct or learn the finer points of language
from their mistakes all by themselves
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