Question

After completing the assignments in this unit, think about this question: "How has the Internet affected culture?"

Answer 1

If we take into account that culture is the group of attitudes and the way in which a group of people live, we can assure that the Internet has put culture upside down in just a couple of decades. From the point of view of average people, the web has brought a lot of information, and also misleading information, to every single home connected to it. Before it existed, news were only available on TV, the radio and newspapers. Now, thanks to the Internet, we have access to all kind of information through a click. Another example is travel. Nowadays it isn't necessary to travel to a place itself to experiment the sensation of being there since we can position ourselves in the middle of a Brazilian street and start living the experience. Communication is another very important issue that has been totally modified since the appearance of Internet. We are now communicated all the time, no matter wherever in the world we might be. However, virtual communication has put aside a lot of face to face communication. If we count the amount of 'friends' we have on social nets, we would easily realise it would be impossible to have all those friends in real life.

Students have been considerably benefitted from the net. Doing homework is now an almost pleasant activity. They can get all the information they obtain from their home's most comfortable corner. The drawback of this is that several times they don't even read what they obtain because they didn't need to copy it from a book. Despite the Internet has helped students to save time when studying, the quality of the information not always meets the courses' expectations and the easiness of the system doesn't allow them to value what they can get.