By
Naomi Sarijoen & Shana Atangana Bekono
If someone would have told me back in the old days that, in the future, we can communicate with people on the other side of the world without actually being in that country, I would not have believed it and think it was just another science fiction story. However, the immense world of Cyberspace is nowadays not only real but also indispensable. It is a fact that the Internet is a daily-used, valuable tool. You cannot imagine yourself going through life without even checking your e-mail or Facebook. Hence, you have probably experienced the stress moment when you lost your smartphone and you literally saw your life passing by in a flash. Luckily for you, if you had an iPhone with a back-up system, otherwise you lost all your important appointments, contacts, photos, videos and text messages. Furthermore, the majority of students, these days, search on Google for information instead of going to the library to actually read a book. It is not an exaggeration to state that students, in our modern society, are virtually 100 per cent connected. The weather for tomorrow, even for the whole week can be checked online. People can shop online; you do not even have to get out of bed. You can keep in contact with your friends on social network sites all over the world from your own computer. The Internet is cheap, fast, accessible to anyone, whether you are young or old, male or female, black or white. This Internet revolution has changed the way of communication in the world and the procedures of doing business. People can rapidly exchange ideas and information, likes and dislikes, photos and videos. A modern world should be including a world in Cyberspace; however, the increasing growth of science and technology can both be good and bad.
Cyber communities/ societies
In Cyberspace, you have all kinds of communities, such as in the real world. The community is characterized by shared values, a sense of togetherness. Only now, you can be connected to several computer networks, without having a face-to-face interaction. These new technologies in communication, connects people all over the world. The world in Cyberspace feels so real and so close: like it is just one click away, like the world you are in is endless without any borders. You can make new friends in chat rooms or in social networks. You can follow your favourite band on Twitter or MySpace. You can meet fellow fans of your favourite band and share your emotions and experiences. Moreover, many enterprises are doing business and making transactions via electronic networks. Some corporations only exists online, which means there is no actual store and you can only buy products online. Another cyber community is a cultural one: people with the same nationality or ethnic background often feel bonded and it is likely that there is a website for that particular country, where you can check the daily or weekly news to stay updated. Then we have the community of shared belief such as religion or a particular life style. In this way, people can discuss about issues and best practices. You can even practice your favourite sport online and find online gamers to compete against. The communities are never ending, such as in real life; however the possibilities in the virtual world are endless. Below, you can see a video taken at Sony at E3 in 2005, which shows a futuristic Cyber Society. Again, Cyberspace is easy, accessible, fast and cheap. But that is also why users should be careful, especially young children. It is likely that your kids or little brothers/sisters are active on the computer every day, maybe knowing more about the Internet. However, they are not always aware of the dangers of Cyberspace. Sure, you can make new friends all over the world, but are you certain that your new friend is not a pedophile or a cybercriminal trying to steal your identity? This might sound extreme, but in real life these situations occur daily. You cannot completely prohibit the use if the Internet. What you can do is make people aware of the dangers of Cyberspace and keep updating the security systems. Then, you can really enjoy the amazing world of Cyberspace.
One way to enjoy Cyberspace is online gaming. There is a whole community based on online gaming. Games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life are popular and the latter involves actual money. The important aspect of this cyber community is that you totally lose yourself in the game. It feels like it is real, only better. You can shoot people and earn points to get a level higher. Every time you finish a level you feel invincible. In Second Life you can be the person you always wanted to be. Therefore, this game makes you feel happy. With online gambling, you can even win real money, without you leaving your home. New gadgets are coming out continuously. In my days, the Gameboy was the best computer game ever. It was portable and you could race against other cars or collect coins to save the princess or kill mushrooms as Mario and all of this in one Gameboy. Nowadays, you can play golf virtually, thinking that you are playing in the best golf course available, seeing yourself hitting the golf ball far away towards the green. What will the future bring for online gamers? With this pace of transforming and approving technologies, I foresee a game, where you actually think you are in the game yourself. Just like in the movie Gamer (2009) with Gerard Butler. In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle in a 'doom'-type environment. Convict Kable, controlled by Simon, a skilled teenage gamer, must survive 30 sessions in order to be set free. This game sounds a bit cruel, but the possibility to take over someone’s movements could be real in the future. Or what about a new gadget, where you have to wear video glasses in order to see the places you would like to be, such as Paris or the Grand Canyon. All of these technologies are amazing with endless possibilities. However, you should be careful not to get addicted to these games and gadgets, only because it gives you a good feeling about yourself. It is still only a game.
Cyber threats to society
The more powerful a tool is, the more dangerous it can be. The Internet is extremely powerful and useful, but you must be extremely careful when using it, as it also poses serious dangers. Because of the possible dangers, more than 40 member nations of the Council of Europe drafted an international treaty aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime. There are so many cases, which involves child pornography and problems with confidential information. The Internet can be used for so many good reasons; however, as we live in a world where it is rare that people are being honest, everybody can become a victim of cybercrime. You can think of spam which is relatively innocent but still unlawful. What is more, fraud is very dangerous because using computer systems; you can steal huge amounts of money from banks or steal someone’s identity just by using their name and bank account number, for instance. Also cyber bullying and cyber terrorism are both new forms of threats to society. The positive aspects of the Internet can also be negative for users with bad intentions. Because the Internet is cheap, fast, easy and accessible to anyone, it is impossible to stay one step ahead the cyber criminals. Therefore, arrangements can be taken after the crime. As long the technologies are changing, so will crime change for the worse. Be careful with the immense world of Cyberspace.
Cyber Sex
You can basically see the internet ( with all its advantages and disadvantages) as a reflection of people's everyday lives. All the things that surround us in person and the tools to fulfil our satisfaction can also be found on the internet. For instance, a society deals with travelling, working and education. With the coming of the internet a progress started in which our lives started to slowly get used to the fact that everything what we wanted was more accessible. A click on the screen and here is your ticket to Singapore, can't make it to a lecture? Go online and video stream it live. In my opinion, you can find on the internet everything that plays a big role in our lives. And something that plays an important role in our society is sex. Pornography is not a very young concept. You can find books with explicit drawings dated from the 18th century and alongside with everything else that developed through time pornography did as well. Whereas before internet people mostly got their pornography material from videotapes and pictures, nowadays like everything else it literally is only a few clicks away. The big difference with before is that you have access now to a wide range of different categories of pornography. You can type in very specific things you want to see from soft porn to hard core porn. For some people there has always been some kind of a taboo on pornography. Watching dirty pictures or movies is something that you secretly do at home, late at night and you never talk about it. But why wouldn't people want to talk about? If you share a lot of stuff with your friends then why not porn? Internet played a huge role because people can now anonymously see what they want to see without feeling ashamed what the guy at the video store would think if they see you buy a porn magazine or some pornography videotapes. The internet also made it possible to now share your personal photos or videos with the rest of the world. A lot of the porn on internet are pictures or amateur videos from normal people who just want to share their sexual activities with people who are interest as well.
Another important aspect of cybersex are the chat rooms. There are numerous chat rooms to be found on internet in which people have explicit sexual conversations. It is somehow typical that whenever a person can hide behind his or her screen the filthiest language comes out of their mouth. Internet always offers a sort of wall between you and other people and with that wall up you don't have to be ashamed anymore because nobody knows who you are anyway. However, if you want to there is a possibility to chat with a webcam on. It doesn't come as a surprise that in these chat rooms everything is mostly a bit vulgar and the only thing you see on your webcam are usually genitals. A good example of a chartroom like this Chat roulette. It is an ordinary website where you have an account and then you get randomly connected to people from all over the world who also have an account. It is mostly used though as a place for cybersex. The conversations are basically all about sex and you can perform stripteases and what not in front of the camera without showing your face but still doing what you want to do. A huge downside of these chat rooms (and pornography) is that it is really dangerous for children. There have been news reports on how sex offenders pretended to be a young person and they slowly talked children who were on chat rooms into meeting them or sharing photographs with them. Besides this, child pornography is really accessible as well now. There are online communities of sex offenders distributing pictures or videos from their activities. It is sad but this is actually a logical consequence. Not everything that is good will develop itself, also everything that is bad can develop itself through internet.
A thing that also developed itself rapidly was the concept of internet dating. There are a lot of dating sites now. From unprofessional ones to very specific ones where you have to have at least a bachelor degree before you can subscribe. The interesting part is that most people have overcome that taboo. In the beginning some people used to laugh when they found out that one of their friends was on a dating site but the number of happy couples that know each other through such a site is getting bigger and bigger. You chat with someone that is matched to your profile and if you click you go on a date. But as with chat rooms it can be deceiving. Who says that the person behind the desk is actually the person you see on the picture of their profile.
Shifting Identities
Shifting Identities is kind of a downfall of the internet. Because we do not know who is behind the screen and because of the fact that we want to believe that people are honest and truthful we share ourselves probably a little too much with other people online. You have to be really careful with everything that you share online. For a lot of things (that you don’t always can trust) your data is being asked. But people never fully comprehend how easy it actually is to steal someone's identity. Besides this, maybe it is also interesting to look at identities from a different point of view. Aren't we losing ourselves online nowadays? It is not uncommon for people to admit that they feel more at ease or comfortable online and in online communities then in their normal everyday lives where they have to go to school or work and have to interact face to face with people. It might be considered good that they have at least one place where they can feel like themselves and be safe but it is also kind of disturbing that you are one person online and a completely different person in real life.
Conclusion
Internet and the constant change of internet is a very interesting process and on the one hand it is excited to see what will be developed next. We already have come so far and did so many things. We created a whole life next to our own lives and often we prefer the cyberspace life. And why wouldn't we? Everything that we can see or do in real life can be found online and we feel more at ease but there are no judging eyes following us because half of the time people don't know who you are anyway. Cyberspace will develop itself even more and perhaps will integrate on a high level with real-life. At the moment we cannot nearly imagine it but life can probably be made even easier. However, we should really not forget that there is a real-life for some reason and that human beings need real interaction with others for a reason as well. For now we say that the advantages of cyberspace outweigh the disadvantages of cyberspace but who knows for sure that too much development will not create a shift of the balance?
