What are the Advantages of the Internet?
These days, it’s not easy to imagine living without the internet.
You may not be aware but while there are approximately 7.7 billion people in the world, no less than 3.5 billion of them are online. There are more than 1.92 billion websites. Google processes over 99,000 searches every single second which adds up to more than 8.5 billion searches a day.
Those kinds of statistics are mind-blowing.
Obviously, for many people, the internet is now a fundamental aspect of our daily lives. It’s central to how we live – how we do things.
Our reliance on the web isn’t without its issues.
While it’s not all good and there are some disadvantages, in this article, we discuss 13 advantages of the internet that I believe help to improve our lives.
1. The Power of Knowledge and Information at Your Fingertips
The Internet consists of an endless conglomerate of information at your fingertips. This information serves to answer almost any question on almost any topic you may have in mind.
Plus, with websites such as YouTube, there is an explanation for almost everything, and with sites such as Udemy, and online platforms like Teachable and Podia, among many others, the amount of online courses to choose from is simply staggering.
2. Education
Of course, education via the internet goes hand in hand with The Power of Knowledge and Information at Your Fingertips.
It would be difficult to imagine what education would be like without the internet. Imagine trying to tackle some tricky assignment at home? The internet makes it much easier.
What about exams? Without the help of the internet, you might struggle. Presentations? Same again, unless you prefer to make all your presentations by way of colored pens and paper. Essay writing? Enough said!
With a computer or a smartphone and an internet connection, students enjoy far better chances of success.
3. Quick, Easy Communication and Shareability
If you were to use postal services to dispatch a letter to someone, it can take days, or possibly even longer before it reaches its destination. Along comes email, which was invented in 1965, and that’s all changed. Typically, emails are received within a matter of a few seconds after dispatch by the recipient.
There are various other communication formats like SMS, instant messengers such as WhatsApp, and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) such as Skype and Zoom, which also permits instantaneous communication with anyone regardless of their location – provided, of course, they have internet connectivity.
With the huge variety of online forums, we can now share information with thousands, even millions of people, again, irrespective of their whereabouts.
The internet helps to befriend people that would otherwise remain foreign or alien to us.
4. Stand Out from the Burgeoning Crowd
With the internet, you get a platform.
With 7.9 billion people on this planet (the number continues to grow) what is there to feel special about? How do you stand out in a unique way?
Answer: Internet!
With the help of the internet, you can be someone.
To be someone, you can start a blog, you can set up a vlog, you can generate a huge social media following on Facebook or Instagram. It’s even possible to gain fame overnight with the help of the internet.
5. Addresses and Mapping
The internet, with the aid of GPS technology, can help in providing directions for very many locations around the globe. It’s a great way to find a particular address or to locate a particular business that offers the products or services that you require.
Now, internet technology has gone a step further by ‘understanding’ where you are located. In turn, this means that an internet search helps you to find more relevancy in terms of the provision of local results. In need of an electrician? Simply enter ‘electrician’ into a search engine search bar/search box and the results will provide you a list of electricians that are situated in or near to your locality.
6. Job Opportunities
People use the internet to generate an income. A job-replacing income. Your Instagram activities can be turned into a thriving business.
It’s just dynamite for job creation. Think about the ways people are earning money these days thanks to the internet. You can set up a blog and sell products or services or through advertising placements on your blog you can enjoy a very healthy income.
You can sell products on Amazon that you’ve sourced in China or India. Yet, you don’t even need to touch these products – it’s all possible over the internet.
But it doesn’t just stop there.
More typical jobs can be had online too. How do you go about locating job ads for your specific niche, be that working in an office, working in a factory, or working in pretty much any line of business? Chances are you search online.
Then you got websites such as LinkedIn that you can use either to find a traditional job or you can use to generate your own business as a copywriter, a web designer, online bookkeeper, virtual assistant, online customer representative, and many, many more.
Throw sites like LinkedIn into the mix and your chance of finding a new job or starting a new career is amplified even further.
7. Shopping and Banking
For many, the advent of internet shopping and banking represents one of the key advantages of the internet. Take Amazon, for example. You can find so many items being sold via Amazon that you begin to wonder why bother with the hustle and bustle of high street shopping. If you wish to do grocery shopping in your local supermarket, simply fill up your online cart with your preferred list of groceries, make payment, and book a suitable time and day for delivery. It’s all so, so simple!
And how would you pay your Amazon or online grocery bill? Simple. Just enter your debit or credit card details into the relevant fields and you’re done. Online banking allows you to make such transactions as well as to view the details of your bank account, credit card transactions, or if you wish to send money to someone in another country, with internet banking you can dispatch money to very many locations situated around the world.
8. Online Sales
Should you wish to sell your products and/or services, there’s no need to advertise in the local newspaper. Instead, turn to the internet. Anyone with internet connectivity, in any country, can now view and purchase your offerings, making the internet an excellent way to reach a vast potential audience.
Furthermore, if you sell from a bricks-and-mortar type business, a physical location, unless you are capable of functioning on a 24/7 basis such as McDonald’s or the 7/11 franchise, you’ll likely face limitations to your hours of operation. When you sell online, with the help of online shopping cart software you are selling 24/7, regardless you’re online or not. In other words, you can sell when you’re sleeping.
9. Work From Home
Got an internet connection? Great, you can work from home. With an internet connection, many people have the capacity to work from home. Either this or they can establish a virtual office away from home. Many businesses encourage their employees to work from home as it saves money for the business. It can also save employees money and time. If you have young kids you don’t have to pay child care expenses, plus, the daily work commute becomes a thing of the past.
10. Access to the Global Workforce
Looking to employ people to help you with your online business? There are now numerous platforms that cater to this need, including Upwork.com, Freelancer.com, and my personal favorite, Fiverr.com. By utilizing employees from the online global workforce, you can cut costs and you have access to a far larger pool of talent than otherwise you would.
11. Entertainment
Via the internet, we can enjoy all kinds of entertainment. We can watch video content on platforms such as YouTube. We can view streaming movies on YouTube, Netflix, IMDb TV, and Popcornflix, we can listen to streaming music on Amazon Music, YouTube, Jamendo, and SoundCloud, and we can partake in the playing of online games.
12. Internet of Things
You can help to enhance the operability and smart capabilities of various devices that are located inside your home by connecting them to the internet. Home devices are becoming smarter and more and more of them can be connected to the worldwide web, allowing you to have remote control and making life so much easier.
Here are a few examples:
With smart fridges, you’ll know exactly what’s inside the fridge and this information can be sent to your smartphone. If you run out of an item stored in your fridge, say milk, for example, your smart fridge can order milk from your favorite supermarket.
The vast majority of TVs these days are easily connected with the world via Wi-Fi. Very handy if you wish direct access to platforms such as YouTube or Netflix and you don’t have to fiddle around with cables on your laptop.
The temperature in each individual room inside your home can be checked remotely and adjusted to suit so your home is nice and warm or nicely cool when you arrive home. If there’s a problem, smart smoke alarms dispatch a message to your smartphone to alert you.
13. Cloud Computing and Storage
Internet connectivity allows computers and internet-enabled devices to be connected to cloud-based services such as cloud storage and cloud computing. Via cloud computing, a device can access powerful computers, even supercomputers permitting highly complex tasks to be performed while you focus on other tasks.
When you utilize cloud storage you can synchronize data across any device that has an internet connection. This means you can access your files no matter where you are. With cloud storage, backing up information becomes easier and safer since the data is stored in a highly secured fashion on a professionally-maintained server. If you do use a cloud storage backup service and your files vanish or perhaps your home or workplace burns down, all your valuable data is still safely secured for you to access at a time of your choosing.
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