Impact of cyber culture

Impact of Cyber culture in the society

Joseph Lalrinawma

BD-II/ Roll No-2

Cyber Culture: The English language cyber derives from the Greek Word ‘Kybernan’ meaning ‘to guide’, ‘to pilot’ or ‘to govern’. Thus the specific forms of governance or control mend by cyber culture is that made possible by computers. Therefore, cyber culture means the way of life, patterns of beliefs, social norms and material traits of people for whom computer usage shaped their daily existence. There are two forms of the emerging cyber culture. The first is where citizens owned computers and spend enough times using them that they have changed their beliefs, how they relate to people and how they lived each day. In this form cyber culture is socially restricted in which cyber culture became a culture of young people and those who have the ability and access of computer usage. It is also a culture of western and developed nation of people who can read and type and of people who can buy and afford computers and its accessories.

The second form of cyber culture includes more citizens. In fact, it includes everyone for who access to, transmission of and storing digitalised information, graphics and images through computers decisively influenced their lives. The second form of cyber culture enables globalisation of the economy, contemporary banking system, education, transport system (online booking of various means of transports) and also shopping and many other daily activities.

Advantages of Cyber Culture in society

1.      E-Commerce: In modern society, business is carried out through internet on a large scale. Online shopping becomes popular trend and it is almost a fashion in today’s world to shop on internet. The travel agencies also had opened their stall in internet where customers could easily book their tickets for their travels. Modern banking system is also based on this new trend. It is almost impossible to access to our banks accounts today at the absence of internet.

2.      Information: Almost all the information we get today are circulated through internet. The whole society seems to be depending on internet for gaining information about anything. At the moment we want to know about some incident there is internet at the palm top of ours through which we could easily access all the information that we need. The news agencies started putting out their new publications in their own portals which could be read by anyone who needed them. There is necessity for this as well as there is a high demand from the users as well. More over the social networking sites had brought much information to us. It is now at the reach of those who have the access to the networking sites and they could easily.

3.      Entertainment: There is a growing need of entertainment sources for the youths in the modern days. There is a drive for trying to entertain oneself in various ways and for this internet had proved itself to be very useful. We may say that there is unending space for entertainment in the internet which we could not even finish to enjoy. Moreover there is a strong competition to put out more entertainments in the internet which the modern experts raced for. The society, especially the youths, are racing towards the same.

4.      Social Networking: Social Networking sites are becoming more and more populated today. The youths are spending more and more time within the social networking sites and it is the new form of having communion with friends from far and near. The society seems to shift itself from the real world into the virtual world. It is a place where people makes friends with those they had never met before and it provides them chances of meeting their long lost relatives and friends.

5.      Education: Education is helped a lot by the growing use of internet. The students could easily search their sources and get help from it. The teachers also could use the same for preparing themselves and equipping themselves for their lessons. The scholars had shared many of their findings into different portals and these could be easily accessed by those who want. So this helped in enriching the knowledge and helped in enriching the works of new scholars.

Disadvantages

1.      Addiction to internet: One big disadvantages of internet is that it could be addicted. There are many who had addicted the internet itself which could have many further negative impacts. The users could not concentrate on the reality of the real empirical world. They care less about the family they lived with and they do not even care about the society in which they are part of. They also could not care how much they spent for accessing the internet and the bill they paid for the same. They do not have time for other and could not mingle with friends from real empirical world.

2.      Isolation: With the growth of internet uses there is also rapid growth in isolated life. The users need more time for themselves as they need time to access internet. They are in need of accessing internet more and more as they are addicted to it. The users want to be alone so that they will not be disturbed by others. They don’t want other to be with them nor do they want other to interfere in their life.

3.      Exposure to violence and sex: The internet had exposed its users to many areas. Though many are very good for the users, many could have negative impacts on the users; violence and sex are among these. Games, movies, MMS, etc. had reflected these in large scales and these have had negative impact on the users. They are prone to violence and sex is no longer considered as intimate but is exposed publicly. The users tend to have lust for seeing more of them which could be having very harmful psychological and emotional impacts upon the users.

4.      Cyber War: With the advancement of knowledge and skills in Internet and its uses there is another negatives uses of the knowledge which is called as hacking. This could be even said as a cyber-war. The hackers of certain countries are trying to hack other countries database and try to destroy it or manipulate it. The same is seen in case of the India and Pakistan where the Indian hackers put out the National Anthem in the database of the Pakistanis.

5.      Gender Issue: The main skilled users in the fields of internet are mostly male. Therefore there is a tendency to believe that there is very less chance for the females. The females tend to think that they are not given enough education and they could not have the skills as the man does.

Theological Reflections

1.      Communion: The Bible teaches us to have good communion with others and to have fellowships with others. But the use of internet on excess demands isolation as it requires time and apace for the same. So, to be in tune with the teaching of the Bible one must have proper ways of using the internet or in other word a good netiquette. By saying so, we may also say that a good netiquette is very biblical as well.

2.      Respect: The Biblical teachings of respect for others are well-emphasised in good netiquette. This is also very important to guard the internet users from to misuse it. The misuse of internet could be guarded from proper knowledge about the Bible teachings in regards to fellowship with others.

3.      Peace: The Bible, especially the New Testament, is very much concern about peace where it even teaches to love our enemies. The uses of internet, though it is used many times to advocates violence, could be used to support world peace. The users could try to propose certain propaganda to support peace and harmony within and outside the virtual world which will be of great benefits.

4.      Truth: The Bible is very much concern about the truth in all realms. In the Virtual World truths are diluted in many ways including the name of the users as well. So, in this regard we could teach each other to be truthful in our ways of accessing the internet and to be a good netizen.