Lesson 3: Internet Trends

The state of the web continuously changes and evolves right before our very eyes—
revealing new current trends we never saw coming. Gone are the days when email
chain letters and ICQ instant messaging were the big web-defining fads everyone knew
and loved. Today, we're in the thick of the mobile era. It seems like we never have
enough apps to distract ourselves. Many of us are hopelessly addicted to being plugged
into the web at all times wherever we go, mesmerized by cool gadgets that can talk to
our smartphones. We're hooked on our endless desires to consume more content.

10 culture-defining trends on the internet right now that we'll probably look back on in
the future and think, "Man, those were the simpler days!"
1. Thanks to Every Smartphone's Front-Facing Camera: The Selfie Movement
The front-facing cameras on our smartphones changed the way we take
pictures, and social apps changed the way we share them. It's far too convenient
to share selfies these days, which is probably why we've all really learned to
embrace the trend. It also doesn't help that there are countless photo editing
apps available, making it a breeze to enhance your snaps before you share them.

2. Traditional Media Is Now Too Slow: News Breaks on Social Media First
If you want access to the latest news as fast as possible, Facebook and
Twitter are your best options. Social news sites like Reddit are also right up there
with the big social networks.

Social media has changed the way we consume news and stay updated on
what's happening in real-time. Of course, the problem with such quick breaking
news is there's no guarantee everything that shows up in your Twitter stream is
true and credible.

Yes, fake news can be a problem, but there really are no other platforms that
quite compare for getting your news fix.
3. We Want Highly Visual Content: A Newfound Love for GIFs

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 The animated GIF is a magnificent cross between an image and a short video—
without the sound, of course.

Popular social networking platforms that thrive on image-based content, like

Tumblr and Reddit, are go-to places for GIF sharing. There's Giphy, the internet's
image search engine for GIFs. Google even has an image search filter for
animated GIFs, so you know where to look when you really need to find a
specific GIF fast. Just go to images.google.com, do your search, then select
Tools > Type > Animated.
4.The Power of Categorizing Conversations: Hashtags Everywhere
Although Twitter was the original social network to bring the hashtag to life,
others quickly picked up on the trend.

Hashtags can now be used on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, and in all sorts of
other corners of the web. It's quickly grown to become the solution for effectively
categorizing content based on specific themes or keywords to make search and
discovery a whole lot easier. You can be sure this huge trend isn't going
anywhere anytime soon.
5. We All Love to Laugh (A Lot!): Memes, Memes, and More Memes
The internet is obsessed with sharing memes. Websites like BuzzFeed, Know Your
Meme, and I Can Haz Cheeseburger built online business empires out of them, and
almost every week it seems like there's a new one to follow.

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The viral power of ridiculous memes like YOLO or Doge is undeniable. We can't get
enough of them, and there are tons of meme generator tools you can use to create your
own and contribute to whatever's most popular at the moment.
6. New Ways to Be Seen and Heard: Regular People Turned Internet Famous
It's obvious social media has opened new doors for people to showcase their talents
and attract online fanbases.

For many now famous celebrities, starting out by putting their stuff online was really the
only option. Today, all kinds of mainstream actors, musicians, bands, comedians, and
more owe their success to the openness of the web, including major entertainment-
based social networks like Facebook and YouTube. Without them, some celebrities may
not have gotten their foot in the door in the first place.
7. No More Remote Storage Limitations: Cloud Streaming of Entertainment Media
Who needs CDs and DVDs now that we can get unlimited access to all our
entertainment needs through services like Spotify or Netflix? There's no need to have a
hard copy or digitally downloaded copy of everything when you can stream what you
want from the cloud for one small monthly subscription fee.

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Cloud streaming sure does solve the problem of limited local storage, and it's one of the
fastest growing trends in media consumption today.
8. A Little Too Much Information: Oversharing on Social Media

The social web moves so incredibly fast that it's getting harder to always be right on top
of what current social networking site or app is the next big thing. If anything's for sure,
it's that most of us recognize how bloated the social networking experience has become,
with so many sites and apps out there promoting huge friend or follower numbers,
constant engagement, and never ending streams of content sharing. Oversharing has
become a big turn off for many internet users, which is why apps like ​ Path and even
​ Snapchat have popped up to bring a more intimate and minimalist experience.
9. A More Modern Way to Create and Exchange Value: Cryptocurrencies

Almost everyone has heard about Bitcoin by now—the decentralized digital currency
that started turning a lot of heads in 2013 as more people got involved with mining,
trading, and spending it.

Bitcoin has its fair share of problems, given that it isn't overseen by any central authority,
but that hasn't stopped its growing popularity. As a result, countless other

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cryptocurrencies have popped up all over the web, some which seem almost too
ridiculous to be real. (Dogecoin!)
10. The Joy of Smart Homes: WiFi-Enabled Home Gadgets and Appliances

It's not just your computer and your smartphone that are connected to the internet these
days. As the Internet of Things becomes more mainstream, we're starting to see a lot
more gadgets and household objects come with WiFi-enabled features. Someday, our
entire homes and cities could thrive on a connected network where every device,
machine, and thing can communicate with one another to perform and automate tasks.

Issues and Challenges

Internet Problems and Issues Today

1) Internet and Globalization:
The Internet has no doubt revolutionized the way people work and has united this
whole world into a global village.

 It provides a platform where people from different countries can easily

communicate with each other.
 In this way, they can share their views too.
 We can easily connect with anyone on the internet through his/her email id
or any other source and can chat will almost everyone.
 People who are living in different countries can easily communicate with
each other through the internet.
What Does Globalization Mean?
 It refers to the interaction among people.
 This communication is not limited to people only. It can be among
businesses, countries and thus everyone.
Thus it broadens access to different goods and services.
How has Modern Technology Played a Vital Role in Globalization?
 Internet and modern technology are the prominent aspects of globalization.
 They can be referred to as its driving force too.
 Through this globalization, has improved some business sectors and
increased productivity through the electronic transmission of information.

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  But still, globalization has posed some grave threats to internet users.

The Drawbacks of Globalization:

 It has posed threats to data security.

 Hackers can quickly get access to different online users and steal
their data.
 The Internet has a high-speed mode of communication. Some
people chat with people; they have never met/ seen in their life
and don’t know them.
 Then how to filter out evil people among them?
 How to be aware of them?

2) Freedom of Speech:

The Internet provides freedom of speech to people.

Nowadays people can quickly post anything on the internet and comment on different
issues freely.
They consider the online world as a necessary part of their daily life.
Many people in this modern era would be in favor of freedom of speech, but it can harm
people too.

 Freedom of speech for one guy can be an interference in the human right of
another guy.
 For example, someone posts something on the internet following the freedom of
speech, but it may be against someone else, in this way it is against human
rights also.
 Even a single word that you posted anywhere online can inflict a lot of people.
 There are various kinds of negative messages online too. Many of them are
anonymous.
 People also use wrong words to comment on people without any reason. This is
regarded as a cyberbully. Current cyberbully statistics show 69% of people admit
to abusive online behavior.
 This can psychologically harm others.
 People most often lose hope when they are attacked by the negative comments
of people online especially on social media.
Therefore the content on the internet should be scanned to know whether it obeys all
the rules of human rights or not.

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What is Internet Censorship Definition?
It refers to the control of things posted and viewed online by the regulators.

The extent of this censorship is different from country to country.

Should the Internet and Social Media be Censored?
Due to its global reach, it is quite difficult to control the content posted online.

Advantages of Internet Censorship:

These include:
 Limits criminal activities
 Protects children
 Strengthens online security
 Sets proper standards for publishing anything online
3) Online Business

Internet business is overgrowing. Online businesses do transactions and information

sharing over the internet.

 Some people use the internet as a source to grow their offline business.
 In this way, there is also a rise in gambling and other illegal trade.
 Cheating on the internet is increasing day by day due to which innocent
people have to lose their money.

Therefore the question that arises at this stage is how to get rid of such fraudulent
people?

There should be some strategy to stop fraudulent and illegal businesses, so that people
may consider their properties safe.

4) Online Banking

Online banking is overgrowing now. It has made our life more comfortable.

It is easy to pay bills and transfer money to someone through an online account than to
wait in a queue in the bank for hours.

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Although it has made our life comfortable and more relaxed, it has some disadvantages
also.

Through internet banking, we use our bank account detail online, and it is not safe
because anyone can get into our account and can steal the cash we earned by working
day and night.

It has opened doors for cybercriminals.

5) Current Internet Security Issues:

 Hacking has become very common now.

 Hackers hack someone’s property through the internet; they
sneak into private files and sensitive data of people.

Internet Cyber Attacks:

They can occur anytime and make the internet down temporarily for
some time, and you can’t do anything with it. DoS and DDoS are some
examples of such attacks.

Only people knowing internet security can tackle such situations.

Therefore proper safety precautions should be made for such people who
have no experience of such things and are new on the internet.

In the business world, cyber-attacks put too much at stake. No wonder

there’s an ever-growing need for cybersecurity consultants who help
to build a reliable defense, saving companies a great deal of trouble.

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6) Internet Access Problems Today:
No matter how fast your internet is, how good internet connection you
have, you will still have a problem with internet connectivity in the middle
of your work once.

Because it is quite common, it can occur at any time.

Current Internet Routing Issues:

 Sometimes you may get an error that is, unable to locate a host
this might be because you have lost your connection or your
internet server might be down for some time.
 Sometimes you might have a permission denied error.
 You may get a 400 bad request error, or you may have a 401
unauthorized error.

7.) Social Networking Sites:

Although social networking sites are an excellent source of communication,
they have to take us far from our real aim.

Our aim should be to study and serve our country in the best possible way.

We should play our role in inventions and discoveries, take part in

researches but instead, we waste our precious time scrolling our news feed,
just posting pictures on social networking sites considering them as a source
of fun.

The Internet has taken us very far from our real goal of life.

A Source of Dispute:

The Internet has become a source of dispute not only among people but
nations also.
People quarrel on social networking sites using bad language.
The content of such type should be filtered first then posted.

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Life is a Simulation:

Due to an increase in the use of social media, people have now become
habitual of living in a virtual world, instead of doing something they believe
in imagination.

8) Information on the Internet:

The Internet is a tremendous source of information, people now instead of
reading books, like they used to do in the olden days, rely only on the
information on the internet without confirming it.

The information on the Internet should be authentic and should pass

through different resources before being posted.

It should be checked whether it is right or wrong

9) Trolls on the Internet – An

Important Problem of Today:
Internet trolls are quite common today.

Some of them are for fun but many of them create a dispute between
people, they work as adding fuel to the fire.

Internet Troll Definition:

An internet troll is done to cause trouble for someone online.

 They are found mostly on social media sites like Facebook,

YouTube, etc.
 People do it on blog comment sections too.

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Controlling such trolls is quite tricky. The only way to get rid of them is to
block them online.

Why Do People Troll?

It is done to attack and disrupt others.

Types of Trolls:

Its some types include:

a) Insult Trolls:

Such trolls don’t have any particular reason to hate others.

They call other people with unfortunate names to get any negative
emotional response.
Excess of these trolls comes considered to be under cyberbullying.

b) Grammer Troll:

They troll someone on making grammatical mistakes or misspelling any

word.

c) Off-Topic Troll:

Such people post something in the group that is not related to its topic, and
the whole conversation goes off-topic which is quite irritating.

10) Network Outages Today:

In spite of so many discoveries still, there are network outages in some
parts of the world.

The server goes down for no reason for some time.

There are various types of outrages that make the server unavailable to its
users.
The server has no issues in such a case. The real problem is with the internet
connection between the server and the computer.

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The period during which the services are unavailable is known as downtime.
Sometimes the system crashes which results in communication failure.

Such outrages affect the computer/network users badly who rely on 24

hours services. Some such uses include:

 Bank
 Airlines
 E-commerce
 Online news reporting

11) Stalkers and Our Personal

Information:
On the internet, we share our information with the world.
Thus it also becomes more comfortable for stalkers to find our personal
information online.
They can also use different online services to get our data.

Stalking Definition:

It is the repeated threatening behaviour by someone.

For example, making harassing phone calls, following at someone’s home,
etc.
Stalking can sometimes become violent too.

Cyber Stalking:

Cyber-stalking is also much common in which the internet is used to follow

others.

It is also referred to as a technology-based attack.

Examples:

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  Spamming threatening emails.
 Posting bad comments on the victim’s behalf.

Stalking Types:

1. Revenge
2. Gender-based stalking
3. Political
4. Celebrity
5. Relationship
6. Lust
7. Domestic
8. Corporate stalking

Stalking on Facebook Meaning:

Stalking on Facebook is done by following the online activities of another

Facebook user.

It also includes excessive viewing of someone’s profile.

12) Spamming on the Internet:

No doubt the internet can be used as an excellent source for branding and
advertisement, but nowadays it is also being used for spamming.

An example is spam email in your inbox.

What is Spam Definition?

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Sending unwanted and unrequested in bulk by using the electronic
messaging system is referred to as spam.

Its some forms include:

 Spam emails
 Social media spam
 Search engine spam
 Internet forum and blogs spam

It is quite tricky to catch the spammers.

Why is it a Problem?

This is because it eats up a large part of the network bandwidth.

Many organizations are using different techniques to fight against it.

How to Stop and Report Spam Emails?

When you find a spam email in your inbox, inform your mail client that this
particular mail is spam.

In Gmail, you can use the report spam button present in the toolbar to do
this.

 Never download the file if you recognize it as spam.

 Hide your email address and avoid unnecessarily publishing it on
different sites.
 Make it unscannable, i.e., write it in some creative ways like
“ABC [at] Gmail [dot] com.”
 Use anti-spam filters.
 The last option is to change your email address.

Top Free Spam Filters:

These include:

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  Spamfence
 Spamihilator
 K9
 MailWasher Free

What to Do if You Opened a Spam Email?

In such cases don’t provide any information to it.

 Close your web browser.

 Delete the browser history and clear the browser cached data.
 Also, delete the browser cookies
 Scan your system with a good antivirus

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