Internet and Communication,,their advantages and disadvantages,,

What is internet???

Internet is such an important thing nowadays. Most of us use it everyday whether to search for information, to find friends and even to buy groceries. But what is actually this thing so call internet?? Is it a device?? We use it everyday, but do we actually know what it is?? According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that interchange data by packet switching using the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies.

What is Communication???

Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood by both sender and receiver. It is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged, Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond. It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur. Communication is the articulation of sending a message, through different media whether it be verbal or nonverbal, so long as a being transmits a thought provoking idea, gesture, action, etc.

What is the advantages in communicating through internet???

In today's world, the Internet is playing a big role in how people communicate with each other. It has allowed people to correspond with each other in faster, more efficient, and often inexpensive ways. We have gone from a verbal and hardcopy society to one of online communication. We use email and instant messengers to keep in touch with family members, friends, and perhaps even business associates. Not only do these new types of communications bring changes in the way we communicate, they also bring new obstacles in communication, such as the inability to see and hear people as they write to us. There are both advantages and disadvantages to online communication, but regardless, this form of correspondence is becoming more and more popular and is widely used across the world.

Email communication is now used by thousands of people everyday. They use it to send documents for business or school, to catch up on the latest news with their friends and family, or to send pictures, jokes, and forwards. The advantages to email are numerous. In one session in their email account, people can write a "letter" to someone, send it over the wires, and the person they are writing to will receive it in a matter of seconds. It is phenomenal, and it happens without the use of paper, pens, envelopes, and stamps. The middle man is completely cut out--there is no post office required. People save time and money in communicating with each other. People who use email don't just have the option of writing to others, they also can send them other things via the Internet. They can send pictures in emails, send electronic greeting cards through email accounts, and send links to other websites they may find interesting or useful to the person with whom they are corresponding.

Email is readily available to anyone who has Internet access also. There are several free email providers, such as Yahoo! and Hotmail. These email providers have been developing new accessories to make emailing more enjoyable, more user friendly, and to add to the visual appeal of email. Accessories such as sorting capabilities of incoming mail, automatic junk mail deletion, and address books are helpful in the email process and are becoming a common feature of most major email providers.

A fairly recent development, the instant messenger, gives users the opportunity to converse in real time, with people anywhere in the world. Instant messengers are very popular today because of the many pros that are involved with using them.

Instant messengers allow users to talk to each other as if they were having a phone conversation. One person types something and sends it, the other person receives it instantly (thus the name), reads it, and responds back. People can talk to their friend in the same dorm building, their mom in a different state, or their friend who lives in China. The best part about this ability to talk to anyone anywhere is that there are no long distance phone bills. As long as you have an internet connection, you can talk to whomever you want, wherever you want.

Another special characteristic of instant messengers is that you can use emoticons to express feelings and other actions. Emoticons are images that appear after the user has typed in a code. For example, if you type : ) a smiley face will come up. If you type ;) a winking face will appear. :P displays a smiley face sticking out its tongue.

Instant messengers also allow people who are handicapped to communicate with others. The hearing impaired are able to converse with people. Also, people who can’t speak for whatever reason can use instant messengers to communicate with friends and relatives.

While phone conversations and face-to-face communication allow us to hear and/or see each other (our body language and facial expressions) sometimes we feel more comfortable conversing with people when we can’t see or hear them. For example, sometimes it’s easier for people to discuss problems they are having. At times, talking about difficult issues can be hard for some people.

Best of all, because most instant messengers are free, communicating with them not only fast, it's also cheap!

What is the disadvantages in communicating through internet???

Although there are many advantages to email, there are also several negative aspects too. While writing a letter can be as simple as picking up a pen and writing words on paper, composing an email can be much more complicated.

Despite efforts by email providers to simplify email composition so it’s more user friendly, writing an email can be a difficult task for the computer illiterate. My mother is one of those people who sees computers, specifically internet knowledge, as a foreign language—a language she’d be able to survive without knowing, and therefore, she’s very reluctant to learn. She recently broke down and got an email account so that she could keep in touch with my sister and me while we are away at school. It has taken numerous lessons from my sister, my father, and me to get her to the point where she understands just enough that she can write an email and reply to one.

Besides the complication aspect, there are other cons to using email. While you can send electronic packages through email, such as attachments containing text or pictures, you can’t send actual three dimensional packages. So while it may be faster to communicate with writing through email, you still have to wait for that sweater to be sent by UPS to your grandma in Washington.

Another negative aspect of emails is receiving unwanted mail and attachments. Businesses can send out junk mail to you email accounts just like they send junk mail to your mailboxes at home. Besides junk mail, you may receive forwards containing useless information that can waste your time, or you may receive viruses through emails that can destroy the hard drive on your computer. You should always be weary of attachments on emails or of emails that have been sent to you by someone you don't know or by an undisclosed sender. In cases such as these, you should use an anti-virus software program to scan the materials to avoid damage to your computer.

A very important con of email communication is the possibility of being misunderstood. Because you cannot see or hear the person with whom you are communicating and vice versa, there is a chance that something that is said may be misinterpreted. If, for example, a friend sends you an email and says something with sarcasm, you may not pick up on the sarcastic tone. This is because you can’t hear their voice as they say it, and it can cause arguments and hurt feelings.

A question that has been posed in regard to this tendency of miscommunication is: Why was this problem never an issue raised from written communication? There is no definite answer for this. No one can say that people who used to write letters to each other never became confused or never misread something that was written to them. It probably happened frequently. Perhaps the reason that misinterpretation has been brought up in regards to email is because people, especially those reluctant to change, seem to try to find fault with electronic advancements. It is important to remember, however, that no form of communication, written, spoken, or electronic, is free of problems and faults.

Although instant messengers have quite a few positive aspects, there are setbacks with them also, as with all forms of communication. A popular complaint of instant messengers is that they don't allow us to see or hear the person with whom we are communicating. As with email, this can cause misinterpretations of meaning.

During face-to-face communication, we can not only hear the person's vocal inflections, we can also see their facial expressions and body language. Vocal inflections allow us to tell if someone is sad, mad, happy, or being sarcastic. Facial expressions also tell us a lot about the mood and emotions of the person with whom we are communicating. Body language gives us clues as to whether the person we are talking with is listening to us, if they are interested in what we are saying, or if they are bored and want to leave the conversation.

When speaking on instant messengers, we are cut off from those visual and audio clues that we usually rely so heavily on, often without thinking about it, in face-to-face conversations. Even in phone conversations, we have audio clues like the vocal inflections that allow us to tell if the person is being sarcastic, serious, if they are upset or pleased, nervous or comfortable. Sometimes we can even tell if someone is interested in the conversation through their vocal cues. If someone is bored and trying to rush us off the phone, for example, they will often be short with us, giving us simple answers and having a monotone, uninterested voice.

As with email, it is possible to receive viruses through instant messengers. It is important to be cautious when people send you files over the instant messengers. Even if you know the person well, they may have caught a virus from someone else and not know it. Anytime someone sends you a file, think carefully before accepting it. Either decline it just to be safe, or use an anti-virus software program to make sure it is safe.

Conclusion

Despite certain cons of using email and instant messengers, both communication mediums are popular and convenient. Today, more and more people use email and instant messengers to communicate with each other. They give people the chance to correspond with one another in fast, cost effective ways. The problems posed against these two mediums are real and do need to be addressed. However, if users of email and instant messengers are aware of the potential problems and know how to avoid/deal with them, using these modes of communication should prove to be helpful in conversing with friends and family around the globe.

The Benefits of Creating Your Own Website

There’s millions upon millions of websites on the internet and many individuals and businesses alike opt to create their own site for an array of reasons. Some websites are dedicated to commerce, while others are designed to provide information about a person, location, organization, group, cause or event. And then there’s personal websites, intended as a location on the internet to display information, writings, art, and photographs. Whatever the purpose, websites can serve as an invaluable tool in a world that’s increasingly technology-oriented.

An individual, group or business has two basic options when it comes to creating a new website. One option is to hire a talented web design artist or firm to create and manage a site, but this comes at a price. Precisely how much varies on the size, complexity and function of the site. A site designed to display photographs and text is relatively simple to create, while a website that includes archiving capabilities, e-commerce capabilities and other interactive tools can be quite time consuming to create. A moderately complex site will typically cost a couple of thousand of dollars to create.

“These days, it takes only basic computer literacy skills to create a website from scratch,” explained Alan Sparks, software designer, web developer and internet enthusiast. “There may be a few questions in the beginning during the creation process concerning hosting or domains, but once you work through that, it’s just a matter of learning the program that you’re using to create and maintain your site. And most of these programs are designed for use by the average person walking down the street.”

Another benefit to opting to create a website on your own is the ability to create the site in a manner that’s consistent with your vision, whereas design elements and vision can be lost and misinterpreted when working with another designer.

In addition, creating and maintaining a website in-house allows for frequent and fast updates and alterations to the site content. Sparks explained, “Website developers and firms charge by the hour for updates and alterations, and there is typically a one-hour minimum charge involved. So you can’t make a small change when the need arises – you have to wait until you have at least an hour’s worth of work in orders to get your money’s worth.”

When a relatively small change or update is necessary for a company, individual or organization that’s hired a website developer, the other option involves paying the one-hour minimum charge for one small update that takes just a few minutes to complete. Either way, it’s not conducive to the constant evolution of a website, which is necessary to keep the content fresh, current and competitive in the realm of the internet.”

In sum, creating a website without the help of a professional website developer or web developing firm can be rewarding and conducive to maintaining a dynamic, ever-changing website. But there’s a few instances where it’s beneficial to turn to the professionals, such as in the case of an individual or company that’s looking for a complex website design or when regular updates or alternations are not necessary.

Use of the Internet Communication with Health Care Provider

Discussion

Despite over a decade of research and the availability of guidelines for use of Internet-based communication by health care providers, the number of health care consumers using online patient-provider communication is still far below estimates of the number who would prefer to do so. Though data from HINTS suggest that use is slowing increasing, diffusion of online patient-provider communication is occurring at a pace far slower than diffusion of Internet use in general.
Thus, the question remains: Why is the overall prevalence of online communication with health care providers so low? While health care consumers and health care providers express concerns about communicating online, ratings of satisfaction and predictions about impact on health care quality regarding Internet-based communication have been generally favorable among both health care consumers and health care providers. Therefore, use of online patient-provider communication will likely not significantly increase through efforts to change the primarily positive attitudes of health care consumers or health care providers, but rather, through changes in policies related to health care delivery and through development of systems that prioritize usability. Recent increased availability and adoption of online personal health records and electronic health records will likely affect the prevalence of online patient-provider communication, as will policies at the state and federal levels designed to promote diffusion of health information technology. Continued implementation of policies that provide an architecture of support for online patient-provider communication and that address issues related to consumer and health care provider preferences, system interoperability, data security, and health care costs will be critical for maximizing the availability, adoption, and effectiveness of Internet-based communication between health care consumers and health care providers.
Associations between Internet users’ sociodemographic and health-related characteristics and use of online patient-provider communication reveal insights regarding who may be taking the lead with online health care provider communication and who may be left behind. In 2003, Internet users with high levels of education were more likely to have communicated online with an health care provider, consistent with previous studies. That education was nonsignificant in 2005 may suggest that health care consumers’ level of education is less of a barrier to communicating online with health care providers as the prevalence of online patient-provider communication increases. Similarly, though Internet users residing in non-metro counties were less likely to have used online patient-provider communication in 2003, metropolitan statistical area was not associated with use in 2005. Deeper penetrance of high-speed Internet access into more rural areas may have decreased, over time, the degree to which location prevented online communication with health care providers. In both years, indicators of poorer health status (poor/fair self-reported health status, personal cancer history) were associated with online health care provider communication, suggesting that Internet users with more medical problems or who are more engaged with the health care system due to a significant medical history may be more “hooked in” to Internet-based health communication resources or may have more a frequent need to use them. Finally, in 2005, women were more likely to use online patient provider communication compared to men. This result is consistent with findings that online women are more likely to search specifically for health information compared to men and that higher percentages of women use the Internet for interpersonal communication related to health (eg, use of online support groups or health-based chat rooms).
We did not observe associations between online communication with health care providers and characteristics such as race/ethnicity or annual income that have been documented in other studies as evidence of a “digital divide”. Nonetheless, research and policy should continue to address groups potentially affected by the digital divide to ensure that advances in health information technology benefit all health care consumers. Finally, our results were not consistent with previous studies that observed younger Internet users to be more likely to engage in online communication with health care providers, suggesting a potential growth in comfort with online communication among Internet users of all ages.

WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

DEFINITION OF WIRELESS
Wireless communication is the transfer of information over a distance without the use of electrical conductors or "wires". The distances involved may be short (a few meters as in television remote control) or very long (thousands or even millions of kilometers for radio communications). When the context is clear the term is often simply shortened to "wireless". Wireless communications is generally considered to be a branch of telecommunications.
It encompasses various types of fixed, mobile, and portable two way radios, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and wireless networking. Other examples of wireless technology include GPS units, garage door openers and or garage doors, wireless computer mice and keyboards, satellite television and cordless telephones.

WHAT IS WIRELESS COMMUNICATION?
Wireless is an old-fashioned term for a radio transceiver (a mixed receiver and transmitter device), referring to its use in wireless telegraphy early on, or for a radio receiver. Now the term is used to describe modern wireless connections such as those in cellular networks and wireless broadband Internet.In modern usage, wireless is a method of communication that uses low-powered radio waves to transmit data between devices. The term refers to communication without cables or cords, chiefly using radio frequency and infrared waves. Common uses include the various communications defined by the IrDA, the wireless networking of computers and cellular mobile phones.High powered transmission sources usually require government licenses to broadcast on a specific wavelength. This broadcast platform which has historically carried voice and music, has grown into a large industry, with many thousands of broadcasts around the world.Low-powered radio waves, such as those used in networking to transmit data between devices, are often unregulated. Wireless is now increasingly being used by unregulated computer users. Optimal bandwidth routing within wireless networks requires the calculation in real-time of the best way to direct traffic.Software and hardware developers are creating smaller computer networks which form ad-hoc wireless network, with protocols such as WiFi and ZigBee. The IEEE 802.11 standard is for wireless, Ethernet-like LANs. The insecurities in this protocol have popularized the concept of war driving.

HISTORY OF WIRELESS
The term "Wireless" came into public use to refer to a radio receiver or transceiver (a dual purpose receiver and transmitter device), establishing its usage in the field of wireless telegraphy early on; now the term is used to describe modern wireless connections such as in cellular networks and wireless broadband Internet. It is also used in a general sense to refer to any type of operation that is implemented without the use of wires, such as "wireless remote control", "wireless energy transfer", etc. regardless of the specific technology (e.g., radio, infrared, ultrasonic, etc.) that is used to accomplish the operation.
Early wireless work
David E. Hughes, eight years before Hertz's experiments, induced electromagnetic waves in a signaling system. Hughes transmitted Morse code by an induction apparatus. In 1878, Hughes's induction transmission method utilized a "clockwork transmitter" to transmit signals. In 1885, T. A. Edison uses a vibrator magnet for induction transmission. In 1888, Edison deploys a system of signaling on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. In 1891, Edison attains the wireless patent for this method using inductance (U.S. Patent 465,971 ).
In the history of wireless technology, the demonstration of the theory of electromagnetic waves by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in 1888 was important. The theory of electromagnetic waves were predicted from the research of James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday. Hertz demonstrated that electromagnetic waves could be transmitted and caused to travel through space at straight lines and that they were able to be received by an experimental apparatus. The experiments were not followed up by Hertz and the practical applications of the wireless communication and remote control technology would be implemented by Nikola Tesla.

APPLICATIONS OF WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

Security systems
Wireless technology may supplement or replace hard wired implementations in security systems for homes or office buildings.

Television remote control
Modern televisions use wireless (generally infrared) remote control units. Now we also use radio waves.

Cellular telephony (phones and modems)
Perhaps the best known example of wireless technology is the cellular telephone and modems. These instruments use radio waves to enable the operator to make phone calls from many locations world-wide. They can be used anywhere that there is a cellular telephone site to house the equipment that is required to transmit and receive the signal that is used to transfer both voice and data to and from these instruments.

WiFi
Wi-Fi is a wireless technology widely used between personal computers and similar gadget.

The Internet as Mass Medium

The Internet has become impossible to ignore in the past two years. Even people who do not own a computer and have no opportunity to "surf the net" could not have missed the news stories about the Internet, many of which speculate about its effects on the ever-increasing number of people who are on line. Why, then, have communications researchers, historically concerned with exploring the effects of mass media, nearly ignored the Internet? With 25 million people estimated to be communicating on the Internet, should communication researchers now consider this network of networks a mass medium? Until recently, mass communications researchers have overlooked not only the Internet but the entire field of computer-mediated communication, staying instead with the traditional forms of broadcast and print media that fit much more conveniently into models for appropriate research topics and theories of mass communication.

However, this paper argues that if mass communications researchers continue to largely disregard the research potential of the Internet, their theories about communication will become less useful. Not only will the discipline be left behind, it will also miss an opportunity to explore and rethink answers to some of the central questions of mass communications research, questions that go to the heart of the model of source-message-receiver with which the field has struggled. This paper proposes a conceptualization of the Internet as a mass medium, based on revised ideas of what constitutes a mass audience and a mediating technology. The computer as a new communication technology opens a space for scholars to rethink assumptions and categories, and perhaps even to find new insights into traditional communication technologies.
It looks at the Internet, rather than computer-mediated communication as a whole, in order to place the new medium within the context of other mass media.

Viewing the Internet as Mass Medium

Producers and audiences on the Internet can be grouped generally into four categories: (a) one-to-one asynchronous communication, such as E-mail; (b) many-to-many asynchronous communication, such as Usenet, electronic bulletin boards, and Listservers that require the receiver to sign up for a service or log on to a program to access messages around a particular topic or topics; (c) synchronous communication that can be one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many and can be organized around a topic, the construction of an object, or role playing, such as MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons and their various transformations as MOOs, MUCKs and MUSHs), Internet Relay Chat and chat rooms on commercial services; and (d) asynchronous communication generally characterized by the receiver's need to seek out the site in order to access information, which may involve many-to-one, one-to-one, or one-to-many source-receiver relationships (e.g., Web sites, gophers, and FTP sites).

Reconceptualizing the audience for the communication that takes place on the Internet is a major problem, one that becomes increasingly important as commercial information providers enter the Internet in greater numbers. To date, thousands of commercial sources have created home pages or gopher sites for people to access their services or information about those services. As of September 1995, search tools on the Internet turned up as many as 123 different U.S. newspaper services and more than 1,300 magazine services with distinct web sites. Some newspapers seem to be creating home pages to mark their place in cyberspace until their managers determine how to make them commercially viable. Others may be moving to the Internet out of fear of the electronic competition. Thus, it remains difficult to envision the future of traditional mass media on the Internet-who will be the audience, how will that audience access the information and entertainment services, and what profit might be made from the services?

A parallel question investigates the impact of Internet communication on the audience. Mass communications researchers will want to examine information-seeking and knowledge gaps as well as a range of uses-and-gratifications-based questions concerning the audience. Since the Internet is also being used for entertainment as well as information, effects researchers will want to know whether the Internet is a functional equivalent of other entertainment media and whether there are negative effects in the distribution of pornography and verbal attacks (e.g., flaming and virtual rapes) on members of the audience. There are also questions of audience addiction to certain types of Internet communication and entertainment.

When the uses of the Internet as a mass medium are explored, questions arise about the nature of its communicative content. As commercial providers increase on the Internet, and more political information is provided, the problem of who sets the agenda for the new medium also becomes a concern.

Credibility is another issue with mass media. Traditional mass media make certain claims about the veracity of their information. The Internet makes few such claims at the moment, and it is possible that the concept of credibility will also change as a result. Recently, on a feminist newsnet group, an individual began to post what appeared to be off-base comments to a serious discussion of feminist issues. Several days later it was determined that "Mike" was a computer-generated personage and not a real contributor to the discussion at all. At present there is no way to know when the Mikes on the Internet are even real, let alone credible. Consequently, we wish to underscore the fundamental importance of this issue.

Traditional mass media have addressed the issue within their organizations, hiring editors and fact checkers to determine what information is accurate. Source credibility will vary on the Internet, with commercial media sites carrying relatively more credibility and unknown sources carrying less. A much greater burden will be placed on the user to determine how much faith to place in any given source.

Another question relates to the interchangeability of producers and receivers of content. One of the Internet's most widely touted advantages is that an audience member may also be a message producer. To what extent is that really the case? We may discover a fair amount about the producers of messages from the content of their electronic messages, but what about the lurkers? Who are they and how big is this group? To what extent do lurkers resemble the more passive audience of television sitcoms? And why do they remain lurkers and not also become information providers? Is there something about the nature of the medium that prevents their participation?

Other questions concern production of culture, social control, and political communication. Will the Internet ultimately be accessible to all? How are groups excluded from participation? Computers were originally created to wage war and have been developed in an extremely specific, exclusive culture. Can we trace those cultural influences in the way messages are produced on the Internet?

Social presence and media richness theory

These approaches have been applied to CMC use by organizational communication researchers to account for interpersonal effects. But social presence theory stems from an attempt to determine the differential properties of various communication media, including mass media, in the degree of social cues inherent in the technology. In general, CMC, with its lack of visual and other nonverbal cues, is said to be extremely low in social presence in comparison to face-to-face communication.

Media richness theory differentiates between lean and rich media by the bandwidth or number of cue systems within each medium. This approach suggests that because CMC is a lean channel, it is useful for simple or unequivocal messages, and also that it is more efficient "because shadow functions and coordinated interaction efforts are unnecessary. For receivers to understand clearly more equivocal information, information that is ambiguous, emphatic, or emotional, however, a richer medium should be used.

Unfortunately, much of the research on media richness and social presence has been one-shot experiments or field studies. Given the ambiguous results of such studies in business and education, it can be expected that over a longer time period, people who communicate on Usenets and bulletin boards will restore some of those social cues and thus make the medium richer than its technological parameters would lead us to expect.

Clearly, there is room for more work on the social presence and media richness of Internet communication. It could turn out that the Internet contains a very high degree of media richness relative to other mass media, to which it has insufficiently been compared and studied. Ideas about social presence also tend to disguise the subtle kinds of social control that goes on on the Net through language, such as flaming.

Network Approaches

Researchers approach new communication technologies through network analysis, to better address the issues of social influence and critical mass. Conceptualizing Internet communities as networks might be a very useful approach. As discussed earlier, old concepts of senders and receivers are inappropriate to the study of the Internet. Studying the network of users of any given Internet service can incorporate the concept of interactivity and the interchangeability of message producers and receivers. The computer allows a more efficient analysis of network communication, but researchers will need to address the ethical issues related to studying people's communication without their permission.

These are just a few of the core concepts and theoretical frameworks that should be applied to a mass communication perspective on Internet communication. Reconceptualizing the Internet from this perspective will allow researchers both to continue to use the structures of traditional media studies and to develop new ways of thinking about those structures. It is, finally, a question of taxonomy. Scientists facing something new "can often agree on the particular symbolic expression appropriate to it, even though none of them has seen that particular expression before". The problem becomes a taxonomic one: how to categorize, or, more importantly, how to avoid categorizing in a rigid, structured way so that researchers may see the slippery nature of ideas such as mass media, audiences, and communication itself.