Ugly Side of the Internet

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Unfortunately, the Internet is capable of causing tragic events such as suicide. In this article, a 15-year-old girl named Kenyatta Parker took her life after being a victim to cyber bullying. A video of Kenyatta was sent around her school of a funny video of her dancing meant for her friend’s eyes-only. Harsh comments were left on Kenyatta’s Facebook page regarding her skin color, along with nasty text messages. Kenyatta is one of the many lives that have been taken because of cyber bullying. This shows how something originally created only to be helpful, has been used abusively in order to hurt others. 

Bad Side of the Internet

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This article is an example of the bad side of the Internet. It describes a new rehab facility in Britain. This rehab program is not for drugs or alcohol but Internet addictions. At this facility, patients have to give up all technology such as cellphones and computers. The unfortunate part about this rehab is that majority of these patients are teenagers. This shows just how much children growing up now depend on technology and the Internet. These young patients are obsessed with constantly being connected to the grid and are losing their ability to interact socially. Activities in this rehab program include therapy sessions and taking the patients outside so that they can have the real life experiences that they have been depriving themselves of. 

Good Side of the Internet

Stopcyberbullying.org 

The website stopcyberbullying.org is an example of a website that is beneficial to society. This website provides tips on how to prevent or help someone that is getting cyber bullied. This website also allows people to unite together and find each other in order to promote the ending of cyber bullying. This website also provides detailed information such as what exactly cyber bullying is, how it works, prevention, take action, what’s the law, stop cyber bulling, etc. Thus, stopcyberbullying.org is an influential website that has the potential to help many people. 

Cell Phones and Privacy

I don't believe that prepaid cell phones should be banned. Prepaid cell phones can be very useful to those who do not own a permanent cellphone. Also, it could be possible that someone needs to hide from someone such as abusive partner. Prepaid cellphones can also be useful if someone is going to a place where there is a high risk of losing their phone, such as at a bar. Although criminals use these phones to avoid being tracked, if these cellphones were banned I don’t believe that it would make a significant difference on law enforcement agencies ability to find them. This is mainly due to the reasoning that criminals don’t typically follow the law and will most likely find a way around the banned cell phones. I don’t believe that prepaid cell phones should be tracked. People deserve to have a way to communicate easily with people without being constantly tracked. 

Location Tracking

The idea of planting tracking chips into children could be a potentially good idea but could also have negative implications. In my opinion, parents should have the right to implant tracking chips into young children but there needs to be an age where this chip needs to be disabled. For example, if a toddler were to be kidnapped, a tracking chip could be extremely useful in helping to locate the child. However, at a certain point, this tracking chip starts to become an invasion of privacy. When a child becomes a teenager, the parent should no longer have access to their child’s exact whereabouts.

If there were to be a bill passed that required children under the age of 5 to have a tracking chip, I would support it. However, I would only support it if this chip could no longer be used after a reasonable age. Tracking devices could also be useful for those with Alzeimers. However, in order to preserve this person’s rights, I believe that they would have to agree to be tracked. GPS shoes could be a convenient alternative to a chip since these can be removed whenever desired. The topic of tracking can be a sensitive one regarding the issue of privacy. Depending on the situation, such as keeping an eye on children, tracking people can be a good thing. However, in the situations where there is an invasion of privacy, tracking can be harmful. Overall, tracking chips could become an immense risk if the wrong person discovered this information. On the other hand, this information can be extremely useful if used appropriately. This idea needs to be thoroughly thought over before anything permanent is done.

CS 408

This blog is for my CS 408-01 class. This class discusses the impact the Internet has had on today's society, especially young people like myself. For this class I'm required to read a book that relates back to the class. I chose to read Cyber Warfare which is a topic that I didn't even know existed. So far I've enjoyed reading it but still have much more to read.