Free «Internet and Media in our Lives» Essay Sample

Internet refers to an interconnected network system that joins computers throughout the world using an IP protocol. People use the internet to communicate with each other through electronic mails (Ybarra and Mitchell 470). Internet has also facilitated electronic commerce through websites such as Amazon and eBay. Digitized media refer to texts, graphics, video, and audio content that is digital in nature. This content can be transmitted over the Internet or computer networks. Digital media have, howeve,r harmed the society since it has made it easy to copy harmful information. Digitized media and internet have brought negative effects to the society since they have encouraged the spread of pornography and piracy.

Internet and digital media are harmful to the society since they encourage the spread of pornography. Internet pornography sites enable the public to view pornographic films. Furthermore, these sites allow people to download and share pornographic films and pictures (Ybarra and Mitchell 475). Research has established that pornographic sites make workers spend their working hours viewing pornography. Thus, organization’s productivity is reduced. It also affects teenagers as it encourages them to engage in irresponsible sexual behavior. Irresponsible sexual behavior can cause the teenagers to get sexually transmitted diseases. Digital media has also encouraged the spread of pornography since it has helped producers of pornography distribute it to the public in the form of DVDs. Digital video has also enhanced the production of high quality pornographic films. Due to this, the pornographic industry has been booming. The growth of the pornography industry has resulted in child trafficking and the spread of gender inequality.

Internet and digital media are harmful since they encourage piracy in the society. Website such as Pirate Bay allows users to download music and videos for free. Producers and musicians who own movies that are offered for free incur huge financial losses since they are not able to cover the costs that they incurred while producing or advertising the films (Smith and Telang 328). Torrent Freak claimed that Internet users download over one million television shows each week. Sometimes, pirated software may contain virus. Virus may attack computer system and cause loss of vital information. Digital media have also contributed to the increase in piracy. Using flash disks, people are able to copy and distribute illegal software. Illegal vendors also download movies from the internet and later produce their own copies in DVD so that they can sell these copies to the public.

In conclusion, it is clear that digital media and Internet have brought harmful effects to the society since they have encouraged the spread of pornography. Pornography encourages child trafficking and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, pornography causes children to develop teenage pregnancy. Digital media and Internet have also encouraged piracy. Piracy causes huge financial losses to the copyright owners of music and movies. It also discourages young musicians in the society from producing music since they fear that they will incur losses from piracy.