Internet as the Information Superhighway: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

Internet as the Information Superhighway: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

By: Nellie Tanglib

            Internet, as defined by Dictionary.com, is a vast computer network linking smaller networks worldwide which includes commercial, educational, governmental, and other networks that uses the same set of communication protocols. The internet, as mentioned was first introduced in the 1960’s and later on became accessible by the 1990’s. The use of internet comes new terminologies that are used to describe the internet itself. One of which is the word ‘superhighway’ by the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The word ‘superhighway’ was introduced by Former US Vice President Al Gore to refer to the internet and it being a part of man’s everyday life.

            On the other hand, information superhighway is defined to be an internet-type global network of computers that connects individuals, firms, and organizations around the world. With this, internet is viewed to provide high speed access to all forms of information through a certain type of connection. As mentioned above, the term was first used by Former US Vice President Al Gore referring to America’s situation where each and every citizen is connected with each other.

            Internet, referred to as the information superhighway, is now commonly used as a medium in academics in terms of discussion and transmission of information despite long distances. Based on an article titled, ‘How the Internet Will Become the Information Superhighway’, it is stated that the information superhighway is referred to as a physical network, facilitating the broadband, the two way transmission of digital information, within its virtual space. With this, internet is an information superhighway in a way that it is made of converging networks through an Internet Protocol which enables information exchange and communication among networks. This makes information transmission and exchange, and communication accessible to many all at the same time.

            Based from the article ‘The Internet: Your Information Superhighway’, internet is like that of a crossroad wherein various cars pass by it and sometimes causes traffic. The internet, in a way, is like that of the crossroad in a way that with lots of information available on the internet accessed by millions of internet users. With millions of internet users accessing the same amount of information at the same time, traffic is more likely to happen. The crossroads, for example, has a lot of cars passing through it all at the same time. Given that this cars are bound to the same destination, traffic is most likely to happen. In my understanding, internet is the superhighway as it makes millions of information’s accessible by millions of internet users all at the same time.

            The internet has its own advantage and disadvantages. Based from Seputarikan Com, some of the advantages of the internet are (a) internet provides access to information sources such as e-journals and e-books, (b) it becomes an effective tool for accessing such amount of information in a short period of time, (c) it gives access not only to pure texts but also audio, video and graphics, and lastly (d) it gives the researcher the ability to access web pages and gives the researcher the ease to view citations and supporting data which allows an collective type of research. However, comes the advantages are the disadvantages of such. As stated by Seputarikan Com, the following are some of the disadvantages of the internet: (a) various information at some point leads to difficulty in sorting out which type of information to choose, (b) due to limited search engines and the way how web pages were created, results may be unpredictable and most of the time, it would be difficult to search effectively, (c) the internet has the tendency to miss out some important information, (d) web pages are unstable in a way that they lack permanence and eventually disappear at times, and lastly (d) some information on the internet are off-limits which requires the researcher to subscribe or register.

            Internet, then, allows people around the world to communicate and access information all at the same time. On the other hand, it also has its drawbacks in a way that it sometimes has limited access to millions of information’s, and due to various amount of information available, it leads to difficulty in choosing which information to choose. And so, just like almost everything around us is, internet, still, is something that should be used with utmost responsibility and accountability given its strengths and weaknesses.

Note: Some of the information provided are not limited to what is mentioned above. Also, not all of the information is a personal opinion but are based from information sources in lined with the topic itself.

Reference:

Anonymous. n.d. How the Internet Will Become the Information Superhighway. Retrieved on January 2018 from http://www.digitalsuperhighway.com/Future/InfoSuperhighway.html

Business Dictionary. n.d. Information Superhighway. Retrieved online from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/information-superhighway.html

Seputarikan.com. 2016. Benefits and Drawbacks of the Internet as a Research Source. Retrieved online from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/benefits-drawbacks-internet-research-source-seputarikan-com

Wired. n.d. The Internet: Your Information Superhighway. Retrieved on January 2018 from http://www.msc.edu.ph/wired/superhighway.html