The internet has greatly increased our access to information. To what extent do you think this is a good thing? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience

In the past twenty years, humanity has witnessed a massive expansion of the

Internet

. We roughly can say that in North America every household has at least one device connected to the web.

Although

this

expansion has brought numerous benefits to our society, it

also

has some drawbacks. I personally think that

this

increase in access to information is one of the biggest gains that the

Internet

has brought to our society. Not only does it reach different areas of our daily life, but

also

directly impacts important scientific activities. The latter is particularly relevant for academic purposes, as students and professors can access publications and experiments from different groups across the globe in minutes.

For instance

,

this

was extremely beneficial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the medical community across the world worked together to produce high-quality evidence to support public health measures. If the

internet

were not available, it would be impossible to have all these researchers working in different time zones.

However

, the web is not a bed of roses. The spread of fake news is one issue that our community needs to deal with, as it causes a lot of misinformation. Those types of news cause enormous harm to the individual and to society as a whole.

For example

, many adolescents use social media to bully their peers, without any punishment

thereafter

, as they do it using fake accounts. Regarding the damage at the population level, we

also

observed during the latest pandemic that many websites were created against vaccination. In my hometown,

for instance

, many people trusted those websites and decided to not get vaccines, and, unfortunately, the mortality rates of covid-19 were high. In a nutshell, despite the

internet

having some disadvantages that our community will have to find solutions to fix, I think that in the final balance access to information is crucial to our lives, and the

internet

plays an important role in bringing it to us.