In recent times, news and information through the existence of new media and the propagation of the internet has taken lesser and lesser time to spread. The global village that makes everyone connected meant that no nation can truly stand alone and still prosper. But is all this sort of high connectivity actually beneficial to us? Or do it bring about more harm than good?

The rapid sharing of information has brought about drastic changes on how the world now discovers. No one can now truly be totally isolated from the world, unless he/she chooses to totally abandon technology which is becoming increasingly hard in our connected world.

With the introduction of some Web 2.0 technologies like twitter and facebook, it is now even more easier to stay connected to the people around you with a simple touch of a button or rather a series of clicks. We now can spent lesser time to learn more about our friends, gaining much quicker access to their lives. It makes trans-global relations and friendships mush easier to maintain.

With the huge amount of instant data sharing, the fields of research has certainly gained an edge. Within a few days of discovering something new, the entire field would had been abuzz with it and put it to far greater news. Cures and inventions that can help the world are discovered or created at a much faster rate, benefitting the world faster.

Yet the uncontrolled sharing with no boundaries has also brought along its fair share of problems. In this huge pool of ideas, not all are as positive or as useful as the others. In addition without a proper authority vetting through the impossibly huge amount of content, anyone can easily spread his or her ideology by creating a personal webpage or blog!

Rumours that had no credibility gain ground and is soon taken to be the truth. Erroneous entries in wikipedia also needs time to self correct. But when not correct it gets taken to be the truth by far too many people. This ease in creating falsehood is a little freaky in my view.

The last would be how scary terrorist theories are getting almost equal air time as normal religious views. Fanatics are definitely making use of this avenue to spread their brand of faith. For those with little guidance beyond the internet, they can be easily attracted to such dangerous ideas. The internet is helping create a new breed of hidden terrorist cells!

Yet the internet is but a tool. The onus is on the users – us to control and rein in the blatant misuse of the internet. Only through a group effort that is critical enough can we help to eliminate all the banes that the internet carries. The internet is neither inherently good or evil. It only akes on either quality when we imbue it with these values.