Social impact of the Internet

 

The Internet has enabled entirely new forms of social interaction, activities, and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access. Social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace have created a new form of socialization and interaction. Users of these sites are able to add a wide variety of information to their personal pages, to pursue common interests, and to connect with others. It is also possible to find a large circle of existing acquaintances, especially if a site allows users to represent themselves by their given names, and to allow communication among existing groups of people. Sites like meetup.com exist to allow wider announcement of groups which may exist mainly for face-to-face meetings, but which may have a variety of minor interactions over their group's site.

In the first decade of the 21st century the first generation is raised with widespread availability of Internet connectivity, bringing consequences and concerns in areas such as personal privacy and identity, and distribution of copyrighted materials. These " digital natives" face a variety of challenges that were not present for prior generations.

The Internet has achieved new relevance as a political tool, leading to Internet censorship by some states. The presidential campaign of Howard Dean in 2004 in the United States was notable for its success in soliciting donation via the Internet. Many political groups use the Internet to achieve a new method of organizing in order to carry out their mission, having given rise to Internet activism. Some governments, such as those of Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, the People's Republic of China, and Saudi Arabia, restrict what people in their countries can access on the Internet, especially political and religious content. This is accomplished through software that filters domains and content so that they may not be easily accessed or obtained without elaborate circumvention.

In Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, major Internet service providers have voluntarily, possibly to avoid such an arrangement being turned into law, agreed to restrict access to sites listed by authorities. While this list of forbidden URLs is only supposed to contain addresses of known child pornography sites, the content of the list is secret. Many countries, including the United States, have enacted laws against the possession or distribution of certain material, such as child pornography, via the Internet, but do not mandate filtering software. There are many free and commercially available software programs, called content-control software, with which a user can choose to block offensive websites on individual computers or networks, in order to limit a child's access to pornographic materials or depiction of violence.

The Internet has been a major outlet for leisure activity since its inception, with entertaining social experiments such as MUDs and MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related Usenet groups receiving much traffic. Today, many Internet forums have sections devoted to games and funny videos; short cartoons in the form of Flash movies are also popular. Over 6 million people use blogs or message boards as a means of communication and for the sharing of ideas. The pornography and gambling industries have taken advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other websites. Although many governments have attempted to restrict both industries' use of the Internet, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity.

One main area of leisure activity on the Internet is multiplayer gaming. This form of recreation creates communities, where people of all ages and origins enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from MMORPG to first-person shooters, from role-playing games to online gambling. This has revolutionized the way many people interact while spending their free time on the Internet. While online gaming has been around since the 1970s, modern modes of online gaming began with subscription services such as GameSpy and MPlayer. Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of game play or certain games. Many people use the Internet to access and download music, movies and other works for their enjoyment and relaxation. Free and fee-based services exist for all of these activities, using centralized servers and distributed peer-to-peer technologies. Some of these sources exercise more care with respect to the original artists' copyrights than others.

Many people use the World Wide Web to access news, weather and sports reports, to plan and book vacations and to find out more about their interests. People use chat, messaging and e-mail to make and stay in touch with friends worldwide, sometimes in the same way as some previously had pen pals. Social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook and many others like them also put and keep people in contact for their enjoyment. The Internet has seen a growing number of Web desktops, where users can access their files and settings via the Internet. Cyberslacking can become a serious drain on corporate resources; the average UK employee spent 57 minutes a day surfing the Web while at work, according to a 2003 study by Peninsula Business Services.

The internet has been criticized for its Identity Performativity. User's define and label themselves on social networking sites through artistic tastes, personal experiences and relationships, and visuals (photographs, blogs, etc.). Some argue that the ability to construct a user's identity is limited by other's work and criticize the internet's lack of physical interaction.

 

Part 12. Область моих научных интересов

What is Science?

In ancient times science (from the Latin word scientia) meant knowledge or learning. Today we define science as the study of the world around us. The study of science helps us to answer how, what, where, and why questions concerning our surroundings. But science is more than a collection of facts. Science is a human work. It is a growing and an exciting search for what is true. In this sense, science is a way of solving problems.

The word " science" probably brings to mind many different pictures: a fat textbook, white lab coats and microscopes, an astronomer peering through a telescope, a naturalist in the rainforest, Einstein's equations scribbled on a chalkboard, the launch of the space shuttle, bubbling beakers etc. All these images reflect some aspects of science, but none of them provides a full picture because science has so many facets:

 

Science is both a body of knowledge and a process. Studying at school, science may sometimes seem like a collection of isolated and static facts listed in a textbook, but that's only a small part of the story. Science is also a process of discovery that allows us to link isolated facts into coherent and comprehensive understanding of the natural world.

Science is exciting. Science is a way of discovering what's in the universe and how these things work today, how they worked in the past, and how they are likely to work in future. Scientists are motivated by the thrill of seeing or figuring out something that no one has had before.

Scientists accept that the observations and scientific results must be " objective." That is they must be repeatable, testable and confirmable by other scientists, even (and especially) skeptical ones. The edifice of law and theory that science builds must be representative of a " shared" perception that can be observed and verified by anyone equipped with good observation skills and appropriate measuring tools. Modern science uses language and concepts that go far beyond the directly and immediately observable, but there must always be logical links and experimental operational links between these concepts and things we can observe.

To craft scientific models and theories, scientists must brainstorm, innovate and speculate. That's the creative component of the activity. But they must also maintain a disciplined rigor to ensure that their theories and models fit into a logical and consistent interrelated structure. The final edifice called science allows deduction of predictions about the world, predictions that may be tested against observations and against precise measurements made on nature. Nature is unforgiving of mistakes, and when experiments disagree with the predictions of scientific laws and models these laws and models must be modified or scrapped.

Science has many branches such as physical science, earth science, and life science. Life science is the study of living things -plants and animals. It helps to explain how living things relate to one another and to their surroundings.

Put yourself in the place of a life scientist. Try to figure out the following press releases. Can you explain these events?

CHINE: DECEMBER, 1974 - Snakes crawled from their winter sleeping places. They froze to death in the winter cold. Rats also behaved in a strange way. They came out of their hiding places and wandered around the streets in broad daylight. These events were followed by an earthquake.

CHINA: FEBRUARY, 1975 - Geese were seen flying into trees. Dogs howled for no clear reason. These events were followed by an earthquake.

GREECE: 856 - Mice, weasels, and other burrowing animals were seen fleeing from the ancient city of Helice. Five days later the city was leveled by an earthquake.

Earthquakes affect all the living things. Because life scientists study the behavior of living things they are able to predict earthquakes. It is one of many ways life science is used in the world.

How science and technology influence you

Technology is the use of scientific discoveries. Transportation, communication, food, medicine, and most of what you see around you are the result of technology. Technology based on life science has resulted in many useful applications. Plants that don't get sick easily, shots that prevent mumps and measles, X rays that show cavities, and organ transplants are just a few applications. The world is a better place because of science.

 

Exercise 1. Master the active vocabulary.

 

to peer – вглядываться, всматриваться

rainforest – тропический лес

to scribble – писать каракулями, небрежно

shuttle – затвор шлюза

facet –аспект

to figure out – вычислять; понимать, постигать

edifice – ['edifis] здание, сооружение

perception – восприятие

to verify – проверять, подтверждать

brainstorm – буйный припадок, душевное потрясение

speculate – размышлять; делать предположения

predictions – предположения

to scrap – выбрасывать

earthquake – землетрясение

weasel – ласка

to burrow – рыть нору, прятаться в норе, жить в норе

mumps – свинка (болезнь)

measles – корь

 

Exercise 2. Answer the following questions:

1) What is science?

2) Science is both a body of knowledge and a process, isn’t it?

3) Why must scientific results be « objective»?

4) What branches does science have?

5) Do you think it is possible to live without science and technology?

6) How do science and technology influence the humanity?

 

Exercise 3. Find in the text the English equivalents to the following words and word combinations:

измерительные инструменты

наука о мире вокруг нас

быстро портиться

работа человека

повторяющиеся

подтверждаемые

логические связи

душевное потрясение

наблюдения

точные измерения

трансплантанты органов

 

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