Webupon

Isn’t the Internet a really useful and wonderful tool to have in this modern day? When you are bored, with a bit of time to spend, there it is to relieve your boredom in any way you want. You have just heard a song you like, or one you have not heard for ages, there is the Internet to try and download it from. The Internet has opened up so many avenues for people to delve down but the majority of users use it for only limited things like games, downloading music and looking at online adult entertainment.

It is like a world library where any information required can be found at the click of a button. The retrieving of such information is made all the easier by the clever people who sorted out search engines. Type in a few key words and within a matter of seconds it lists so many websites that you could look at, it would probably take you a life-time to look at them all. Anything you want to know can be found on the internet.

Or can it?

If you want to know something, how do you know where to get the correct answer? If you were to ask a real person whether a song, released before you were born, got to number one they will probably try and recall from memory whether it did or did not. But that does not mean the answer they give you will be the correct one. In that case you may be better checking some kind of reference book to see what the answer would be. The credibility of the source can also be checked, because if it is a reference book you can probably be 99% certain that the information contained within is correct.

But what about on the Internet? If you look up a site for an answer to a question you want to know, then what are the chances that you will get the right answer? Well it all depends on the credibility of the website. It may be an idea to check a few different websites just to be on the safe side that tha information you are seeking and found is actually correct.

There are many websites that, through no fault of the author of them, have factual errors in them. We have all come across them. It is easy to make mistakes and on the Internet, more mistakes are available to be viewed by people than in any reference book. The reason for this is simple. There is no one legislation that covers the content of the Internet.

In many ways, this is a good thing as it means that there is less chance of information being banned from being viewed (within reason of course). Freedom of speech is very important. However, what it does mean is that people can write whatever they want, whenever they want and whatever they believe and in some way can pass it off as the truth. How many rumours are started on the Internet? It could be about sports or celebrities or politics or anything. These rumours can be spread aroud the whole world in a matter of minutes. It is like a gigantic, world-wide version of Chinese whispers, it starts as one thing and can get changed and altered, not only in what is actually said or meant but it can also change from fact to fiction or from fiction to fact.

It can be hard to tell what to believe on the Internet and what to take with a pinch of salt and it is highly doubtful that situation will ever change because it is difficult to envisage any form of governing the Internet on a world-wide scale.

The Internet has opened up many possibilities for everyone who is using it, all the information they need (with plenty more they don’t) just a click away. It is doubtful if many people could live without it these days. If you go back in history, there was no television, no radio and no telephones. For contact to be made between two people, or for people to find out about what is going on, they had to rely on things like newspapers and letters. Newspapers were mainly written with only local things in it and over the years, with the advancement of technology, that changed to regional, to national and then to international. Nowadays the Internet could be viewed as like a never-ending global newspaper.

Before telephones were invented, it was hard for people who lived far away to keep in contact with each other on a regular basis, whereas nowadays, with the advent of mobile phones, people all over the world can be in contact with each other instantly. Due to international connecting costs, phoning different countries can be at a very large cost to the person doing the phoning. That is where the internet comes into its own. The sending of e-mails or of surfing the net for information costs about the same wherever in the world you are. No matter how far from the destination you are sending to or receiving from, it never costs more than a local call. The reason for that is simple, you are not actually phoning (or connecting) directly to that place but making a local call to your ISP. The long distance part is made by the ISP and the cost is majorly absorbed by them. The reason this cost can be kept low by the ISP is that they lease the telecommunication lines that span the world, maintenance costs are low, so advertising and subscriptions are enough to cover the cost of the world-wide network. It is enough, in fact, to still make sure that the ISP’s receive a rather healthy profit, and of course it means that the person using the Internet is not being charged too much for it. Everyone is a winner.

Of course, you have to remember, that the Internet is still in relative infancy and only time will tell of the way it is run today is the same in the years to come. Its popularity may wane somewhat when the novelty has worn off but, if the number of people using it today are anything to go by, it is a safe bet that it will be around for a long long time.

Many argued that radio could kill newspapers off and it didn’t. Many argued that television would kill radio off and it hasn’t. Some doom and gloom merchants thought the Internetwold signal the end of television but so far it shows no signs of doing so. Whether or not you think that the Internet is good or bad, one thing is for sure. The Internet is here and showing no signs of going anywhere else but upwards.