The Internet, the network of networks, has revolutionized both human interaction and communication. Today, it is used to share information or to just be connected and stay social. The Internet ‘has drawn more than a billion people online.’
The Internet was conceived as ‘an open source structure not about profit.’ The primordial purpose of the Internet was to allow the entire world to interact. Today, the value of that interaction is measured by the ability to share information.
Thus, the old adage of information is power has also been revised. Information is dynamic, not static, and since it is a sequential part of the activity of interaction, the power does not come from the sheer knowledge of the information, but rather from sharing the information around.
The evolution of the Internet has logically reached the stage of social networking through social networking sites. In this global and virtual community of users, the Internet allows us ‘to reach out to a much greater volume of people just about anywhere.’ As one expert puts it, “We’ve moved away from a group-based society to a network-based society. This is a major social transformation.’
Today, the Internet can even dictate how much social we can or want to be. It offers the tools to be social. All a person needs is to go online, and determine the level of being social that he or she wants to be at, while feeling the power of accessed and shared information.
Via Live Science
