26 Pros And Cons Of Internet

It has been 40 years since the earliest official form of the Internet was officially invented, and the last time something transformed human lives to this scale was when the smallpox vaccine was invented.

What civilization has achieved with the Internet cannot fit in historical books. The world is now a much smaller place accessible to almost anyone, all because of the Internet. Take communication, for instance; what used to take days, weeks, or months can now be communicated in seconds.

However, like a double-edged sword, the Internet also has a very dark side.

This article will explore the pros and cons of internet use while briefly exploring how each affects the people involved.

Pros of the Internet

There are countless advantages of using the Internet today, and here are some notable ones.

1. Instant Communication

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The number of ways people can communicate with each other is limitless to the point where humans are spoiled for choices; from instant email services like Gmail. Yahoo! Mail and Zoho Mail to instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, people can send and receive messages in real time.

And that’s not all; another pro of internet use is that all these and more aren’t limited to written messages. You can make video and audio calls and share huge files back and forth, all with basic internet speeds. This communication efficiency has made things convenient and saved people a lot of time and resources.

Just think of the times we had to send letters, the cost, and the waiting times involved. Things are way better now.

2. Unlimited Access to Information

A simple Google search can help you access any form of information. A recent estimate shows that 328.77 million terabytes of data are added to the Internet daily, including this article itself.

To paint a picture of how huge this is, a single terabyte equals 1000 GBs, the standard storage size of your average laptop. That’s a lot of information!

Whether you want to check a quick fact or research a vital project, access to verified information is always a click away. And the best part is that you don’t have to pay anything since most of this information was contributed freely.

Even in the instances where you need to pay, it’s never that expensive. This is part of the reason why the levels of education have greatly improved since students are able to conduct better research in a much faster way than before.

3. Free and Fast Flow of Information

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Information uploaded today on the Internet from one corner of the globe can be accessed instantly by another person miles away if they have the correct URL. When being transmitted through the Internet, the information is called packets.

The speed at which packets move through the Internet is roughly 99.7% of the speed of light—the slight variance results from devices like routers, nodes, and switches. But overall, that’s very fast.

Without these bottlenecks, data packets on the Internet can travel through the air so fast that by the time you blink once, they’ve circled the Earth seven times.

4. Global Information Repository

As of 2023, there are roughly 25-30 billion indexed websites on the Internet, with another 275,000 created daily. So where is all this data stored and just how big is the Internet?

A Google CEO once stated that the Internet is home to over five billion gigabytes of data, and this makes the Internet the biggest repository of information. This information is stored in mostly independent data centers and servers worldwide that are run without stopping for 24 hours a day.

This makes the Internet so reliable because it doesn’t have to choose what information to store and what to discard; everything is saved because you never know who may need to access it at any given time.

You can access archives of websites that were created decades ago with all the information intact. In a way, the internet is a good tool for preserving human history because it’s not in any physical format which is prone to destruction.

5. Job Opportunities

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I am a living example of how the Internet can provide excellent job opportunities. The Internet revolutionized the working industry, introducing concepts like working from home which was very helpful during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

All you need now is access to the Internet to browse through millions of job listings, upload your resume and even conduct interviews with people on other continents within minutes. As of 2021, there were over 163 million registered freelance profiles globally.

That should tell you all you need to know about how the Internet is a vast platform for job opportunities. It has created online work for content writers, software developers, and graphic designers, just to mention a few.

6. Access to Entertainment Resources

With a single streaming subscription and a fast internet connection, you can access countless libraries of movies, TV shows, documentaries, and music. The best part is that you can enjoy all these from the comfort of your home through numerous devices.

There are over 500 streaming sites today, with some, like Netflix, having tens of thousands of titles that can be accessed anywhere in the world. As of 2023, there are over 80 million songs on Spotify. This is enough content to keep people occupied for hours, with more being added daily.

7. Online Shopping

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Another vital pro of internet use is online shopping, You don’t have to leave your house to buy necessities. You only need an online shopping app to order anything from food, groceries, clothes, electronics, and even cars.

As of 2019, the global eCommerce market stood at $9,093 billion. Current projections for 2023 are expected to hit $4 trillion by December and $6.35 trillion by 2027.

This illustrates how vital online shopping has become to people, all thanks to increased access to the Internet. Being able to shop online at any time of the day and have things delivered straight to your doorstep frees up a lot of time that can be used for other essential items.

8. Globalization

When Marshall McLuhan coined the term “global village,” he didn’t know how well-connected the world would become due to the Internet many decades later.

There’s very little left to be known about civilized society today because all the needed information can be accessed through the Internet with a single click.

We get quick updates on current events from every country in the world on every platform, and this has, in some way, made the world feel a little smaller and within reach of most people.

9. Medium for Connecting With Others

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Social Media usage has become the most widespread and popular internet activity in the past decade, which explains why many platforms have been created in the last 10 to 15 years.

There were 4.26 billion people on social media sites in 2021, all trying to make new friends and connections.

Whether you’re using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok, it’s now much easier to make new friends online, even when you’re located in different time zones and continents.

This connectivity has helped bring the world closer to people, and this heavy usage isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

10. Remote Working

2020 was a turning point for people worldwide as it marked the moment people finally realized that they don’t need to report to an office to get things done. With a good internet connection, people kept executing their duties during the lockdowns from the safety of their homes, and this has become normalized, thanks to the Internet.

It’s estimated that by 2025, over 36 million Americans will be working remotely as internet connectivity continues to spread and improve.

Many companies may have been against remote working but with how much productivity and reduced expenses most have seen in the last three years; remote working is here to stay.

11. Freedom of Speech

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It’s impossible to muzzle public discourse in this age of the Internet. Thanks to citizen journalism, where anyone with a smartphone can record and share anything from anywhere, it has become increasingly challenging for governments and corporations to hide anything for too long.

A good example is Wikileaks by Julian Assange, who has been exposing dark secrets by governments worldwide, which has cost him his freedom. And thanks to online resources like VPNs, people can express themselves freely, even in the most authoritarian countries, without fear of retribution.

12. Better Access to Education

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e-Learning has transformed the fortunes of many people around the world. People can now be admitted to some of the most prestigious universities in the world, like Oxford or Harvard, through accredited online courses.

This has made education cheaper and more accessible for people, even in the most remote places on Earth. They only need stable internet connections and computers to get world-recognized degrees in their desired fields.

13. Improved Human Rights Protection

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If it weren’t for Wikileaks, the world wouldn’t have known about the inhumane torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in 2011.

Thanks to Net Neutrality, the Internet has largely escaped the grasp and control of governments, leveling the playing field to make it easy for human rights activities to be heard.

Technology like geo bombing, for instance, has been used by hacktivists worldwide to keep themselves safe while exposing the rot in governments and giant corporations, and that’s a good thing.

Cons of the Internet

As good as the Internet may be, here are some disturbing things about it.

1. Loss of Privacy

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Most people use unsecured internet connections, which can be hacked, and everything you do can be seen. Internet service providers, for instance, can see the websites you visit and, sometimes, even the messages you send if you lack end-to-end encryption.

Authoritarian governments are also notorious when it comes to snooping on their citizens as well as social media sites. We all saw how dangerous user privacy violations can be through the Cambridge Analytica controversy a few years back.

2. Spread of Misinformation

At the height of COVID-19, many people lost their lives due to misinformation on what they were supposed to do to combat the spread of the virus. There was so much wrong information on the effectiveness of masks, for example, which only worsened things in the long run.

When the vaccines finally dropped, many people refused to take the shots because they believed unfounded conspiracy theories.

Access to the Internet may have given people complete information, but it has also created an avenue for spreading propaganda, falsehoods, and dangerous misinformation.

3. Social Anxiety

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There’s a whole generation that doesn’t know how to interact with fellow human beings physically because all the interactions they’ve ever had were online. This has created severe cases of social anxiety where people can’t keep it together in public.

This severe anxiety makes it hard for them to communicate effectively, and this opens them up to other mental issues like feelings of self-harm.

Social media has been the biggest culprit of this phenomenon, and there’s a lot of work going on in therapy to stamp this out.

4. Causes Distractions

This is another major con of internet use that makes it hard to get anything done when multiple tabs open on your browser or smartphone. With so many communication tools and social media apps, people in the age of the Internet always have their hands complete.

For instance, the average American checks their phone 96 times a day. That’s way too much for anything substantial to be done. This means they can’t focus on anything else for long periods of time without the need to check what’s happening online.

5. Addiction and Overdependence

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Scientists have identified five main types of internet addiction disorders. There’s Cybersex Addiction, where people are chronically addicted to watching porn and visiting adult websites and chat rooms.

The second one is called Net Compulsions, where a user is addicted to online shopping, gambling, trading stocks, or even online auctions. This can have a very negative impact on a person’s finances and their job.

The third one is called Online Relationship Addiction, where people are obsessed with finding and maintaining relationships online to the point they neglect their real friends and families.

The fourth one is called Compulsive Information Seeking, where a user gets an uncontrollable urge to collect and organize data. This can impact productivity as it consumes a lot of time.

Finally, there’s Gaming Addiction, where people stay online for hours playing games or interacting with other gamers on platforms like Twitch, reading about health issues and strained relationships in real life.

Too much of anything is always bad in the long run.

6. Increase in Fraud

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Remember how we mentioned online shopping as one of the convenient advantages of the Internet? On the other hand, a nightmare has been causing online shoppers and eCommerce stores nightmares.

It’s estimated that over $41 billion was lost to online payment fraud in 2022 alone and that this number is expected to hit $48 billion at the end of 2023.

Despite efforts to secure online payments, entering your card details on an online platform exposes you to many risks, especially when you do it on an unsecured network like public WiFi.

As much as the convenience of online shopping is good, things can go south pretty fast if you’re not careful enough.

7. Increase in Lifestyle Diseases

Too much use of the Internet has contributed to a sedentary lifestyle which has, in turn, resulted in health complications like sleep deprivation, cognitive impairment, and obesity.

Other associated health issues arising from too much internet use include strained vision due to staring at screens that emit blue light for too long. You’ll also experience neck and back pain from slouching in your chair or holding your device for an extended period.

Other complications common among heavy internet users include high blood pressure, hearing loss, and malnutrition due to a poor diet.

8. Job Losses

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While the Internet has provided plenty of opportunities for people, it has also phased out so many jobs the more technology improved. For instance, many online companies are getting rid of their customer care representatives and replacing them with automated chatbots.

The rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT has also created a massive disruption in the job market by taking over roles that have traditionally been reserved for people. Any profession that relies on the Internet will always be at a considerable risk of being rendered redundant at any moment.

9. Permanence of Data

“The Internet never forgets” is something you come across every day online, but it’s pretty damning if you’re on the receiving end of it. There have been countless cases of people having their lives destroyed because of something they posted in the past.

Kathy Griffin, a celebrated comedian, had her life turned upside down when she posted a photo of herself holding an effigy of the then president, Donald Trump’s decapitated head.

This resulted in most of her planned shows getting canceled and being subjected to months of investigations by the Department of Justice.

Despite numerous apologies, she has never recovered from that one moment.

10. Limits Creativity

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Another con of internet use is that people waste a lot of their time scrolling through mundane content, all thanks to the many distractions that the Internet provides. This time could otherwise have been used for constructive and creative things instead.

Furthermore, introducing AI tools like ChatGPT has created quick and hassle-free ways of generating any type of content, for free, within minutes. Even AI tools make music from scratch by mimicking famous artists.

In the long run, things like this end up affecting creativity in a very negative way.

11. The Proliferation of Inappropriate Content

As of 2023, approximately 2.5 million people visit the top popular porn sites every 60 seconds. This wouldn’t be a problem if it were limited to adults only; the biggest issue is that a lot of inappropriate online content finds its way onto screens used by children.

This has had the unfortunate effect of exposing children to child pornography and sexual grooming, eventually leading to sexual abuse.

There have been measures to rein in such websites, but they keep popping up with new mirror websites every time they’re taken down.

12. Cyberbullying

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Cyberbullying is one of the biggest fallouts of the Internet age, causing untold damage to people of all ages and walks of life. The COVID-19 lockdowns didn’t help much as they led to people spending more time behind their screens, increasing their likelihood of being harassed online.

Recent research showed that about a third of middle and high school children have experienced cyberbullying to some level, a constant increase since 2002.

Most of the cyberbullying they experienced was name-calling, leaking of nude photos, and encouraging self-harm.

Furthermore, girls were more likely to be targets of cyberbullying than boys, while LGBTQ youths were receiving online harassment from all the other groups.

13. An Avenue for Dangerous Fundamentalists

While the Internet has provided an avenue for activists to fight for the rights of others, among other humanitarian deeds, it has also given a platform to some of the worst fundamentalist groups worldwide.

We’ve seen terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Shabaab use the Internet to spread their ideologies and recruit impressionable youths to their dangerous causes.

During Trump’s presidency, the United States experienced a resurgence of right-wing fringe groups like the Proud Boys, who are white supremacist groups known for pushing hateful agendas against specific groups of people.

The freedoms granted by the Internet have the unfortunate blowback of also making it easy for anyone to say what they want online, even when it infringes on the rights of others.

Final Word

Anything that can be used for good deeds can also be used to cause harm, and the Internet isn’t an exception to this rule, as we have demonstrated with these pros and cons of internet use.

The responsible use of the Internet comes down to us all because there’s very little that regulatory bodies can do, considering how vast the Internet is.

Use the Internet responsibly and make it safe for everyone else.