Email, web and empowerment

In today’s world where almost everything works on the reliance of computers and emails and it is only natural that we talk about this important topic. The introduction of web in our lives has made a huge impact. From manually writing the newspapers to people reading my blog on a computer/smartphone/tablet; it is a huge difference and this blog entry is all about looking at the good and bad things of this invention. Now there are many but in this entry I will only focus on general aspects of email and web.

Email is a short form of electronic mail and it is very cheap compared to written post; that is once you have setup your computer with internet service. Emails are much faster that post, you can send an email in the time you took to read my entry until now. Emails are accessible from anywhere provided you have internet and a device. It is very easy to setup an email account and manage it so people who are not very tech-savvy can check their email accounts very easily. You can attach a lot of data with the email and you don’t have to pay extra for it.

Web is a short form for World Wide Web or www that is used in the beginning of many sites. Web has many advantages, one of the biggest being that it breaks physical boundaries. People in Hong Kong can read the same thing as people in Hawaii on the same website. The access to web is global. Another advantage is that the web breaks down barriers between countries. Information can be passed around quickly between countries on different sides of the world. Any form of information can be put on the net, for example you can upload a picture, a video, a music clip and text as well as other medias onto the web.

Disadvantages of email would be that you get spam; it wastes your time and with spam can come viruses. Viruses can potentially make your computer crash and viruses can make your computer useless. Although viruses of this severity are less in numbers, most viruses are a nuisance and disrupt programs in the middle of a task. Viruses can be hard to remove and can create a lot of problems in an organisation. Viruses could also lead to someone hacking into your computer.

Disadvantages of web are that it has made jobs easier for criminals and made it harder to track the wrong doer. Because the web is constantly changing, there are constantly changing ways of creating a fraud, successfully producing a phishing scam and committing identity fraud. Before the web, the loot of a robbery or fraud in a bank would have been much smaller than it is now. With a single click, a hacker could steal money upwards of $100, 000 – this was not possible before.

Every good thing has some bad aspects but that does not mean that we should altogether stop using it. Emails and web have far more advantages than disadvantages. Only thing to keep in mind is how you use it. Also keep knowledge of how other people can damage you material so beware of spam and phishing scams as well as any email that looks fishy. The invention of web has made a lot of jobs easier for many people. A few bad things should not put you off using the web.