Impact

There's no doubt that the Internet has made it much easier for us to connect with our friends and family. But it's also made it easier to connect with everyone else in the world. We're no longer confined to our local neighborhoods. Decades ago, if you wanted to sell something, you'd place your goods in your driveway and put up signs for a garage sale. The only way someone would see this is if they drove by your neighborhood and saw your sign. We got a little more savvy and started advertising in our local newspaper. We had to pay to list their ad, but at least we were able to reach more people in our neighborhood. Then the Internet boom happened, and we can use sites like Craigslist to post an advertisement for free and reach more people in our city. Then we were able to sell to people outside of our city, to cities and other states. Eventually, we could sell the people outside of our own country all thanks to the Internet. Globalization is the movement that let's governments, businesses, and organizations communicate and integrate together on an international scale. It's been made possible by the internet and information technology. Countries can communicate with each other faster. News happening on the other side of the world reaches us before we can blink and global and financial trade has increased dramatically. Globalization has transformed almost every aspect of human society as we know it. Media and social movements have become globalized too. In 2011, several countries in the Middle East started riots and protests against their government regimes, known as the Arab Spring protests. Because of outlets like social media, their movement gained worldwide attention and citizens of many different countries banded together to take collective action. Social media movements like this have been going on for years, gathering together people from all over the world and unifying them under a single cause. The Internet has also dramatically changed the way we consume entertainment. A few years ago, if you wanted to watch something on TV, you've got to actually sit in front of your TV right when it aired or else you'd miss it. Then we started recording our shows first on VHS and then on things like TiVo, so we can watch them later. But now we have access to more TV shows and movies than we can ever watch in our entire lifetime at our fingertips. What if you wanted to listen to a new song by your favorite band? You used to have to wait until they release their album in a store. You couldn't just buy one song, you had to buy the entire album on a CD, cassette tape, or even a vinyl record back in the day. If you want it to get the day's news, you had to wait until the next day when the newspaper would print it. Even then you weren't able to get a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the news you can get on the Internet today. Retail stores aren't the only place you look when you want to buy something anymore. Now you can order food, clothes, books, and well, just about anything on the Internet. But you don't just buy stuff off the web. You can even get an education. Colleges and universities worldwide are taking education out of the classroom and putting it into your homes. Online courses are becoming a popular way for people to get a quality education at a more convenient location, time, and price. It's not just degrees. There's an almost infinite amount of educational tools available on the Internet. A few years ago, all this information on the Internet had to be reached through your laptop or desktop. Now, more than ever, people are going mobile and can access all of this information with their smartphones. It's truly an amazing time to be alive in this technological age. The takeaway here is that the only constant in the field of technology is change. As an IT support specialist, You'll have to stay on your toes to keep up with this dynamic shifting landscape.