Now I’m not sure about you, but my first contact with the Internet was in my teens, around the same time that ecstasy hit the market. Two massive phenomena that changed the way people have fun and communicate. Now I’m not advocating ecstasy, but just highlighting how at roughly the same time they both became popular, perhaps not for the same reasons. One of the main differences between them, despite their popularity, is that ecstasy is claimed to damage brain cells and the Internet to increase brainpower. On the other hand, one thing they do have in common is that ecstasy is said to have broken the boundaries of communication, people are loved and accepted, communication or the lack of it, depending on your trip, changed … just like the way the internet has changed the way we communicate today … surely that’s okay, right?

Not everyone would agree. British professor Nicholas Carr highlights what he believes to be a negative statement of the Internet by stating that using the Internet reduces deep thinking that leads to true creativity. He also says that hyperlinks and overstimulation mean that the brain must pay most of its attention to short-term decisions. The great availability of information on the World Wide Web overwhelms the brain and damages long-term memory. This is the result of large amounts of stimuli that lead to a very large cognitive load that makes it difficult to remember something.

Steven Pinker, a psychologist, makes an argument against that the Internet gives people more control over what they do, and that research and reasoning never came naturally to people and claims that the Internet is actually making people people are smarter.

So where is the evidence?

UCLA psychiatry professor Gary Small studied brain activity in experienced web browsers versus casual web browsers. The resulting evidence suggested that the distinctive neural pathways of experienced Web users had developed due to their use of the Web. Dr. Small concluded: “The current explosion in digital technology is not only changing the way we live and communicate, it is rapidly and profoundly altering our brains.”

I guess time will tell how that will happen. One thing I will say is that it is quite shocking how fast the Internet can be understood. For example, while working in a preschool, I observed how an 18-month-old girl, with a diaper and a pacifier in her mouth, who had not yet acquired the power of speech, could stand in front of a computer, change it. and then access a game that you liked to play. His attention span exceeded his attention to sing Humpty Dumpty; All in all, she was engrossed and could add quite well to the game. So what is this level of hand-eye-brain coordination doing to a growing baby’s brain synapses?

Again, I guess time will tell.

For now, one of the greatest advances of the Internet since it came into use is its function as a social media tool.

Surely this should be fine too, right? The ability to access people from all over the world with the same interests can only advance one’s life, right? Well, not according to Evgeny Morozov, who claims that social media could be potentially harmful to people. He writes that they can destroy privacy, noting that “insurance companies have accessed their patients’ Facebook accounts to try to disprove that they have hard-to-verify health problems like depression; employers have checked social media sites. To investigate future employees, university authorities have searched the web for photos of their students drinking or smoking marijuana. ” He also said that the Internet makes people more complacent and risk averse. He said that due to much of the ubiquity of modern technology – cameras, recorders, and so on – people may not want to act in unusual ways for fear of getting a bad rap. People can see photos and videos of you on the Internet, and this can cause you to act differently.

Social media sites are also creating an element of people power over which marketers have more control than governments (unless you take another stance and see that the government controls marketers, that’s it! another article!). The New York Times suggested that social media websites like Facebook and Twitter helped people organize political revolutions in Egypt, where they helped certain classes of protesters organize protests, communicate complaints, and spread information.

It is no wonder, then, that in some countries social media sites are scrutinized and filtered and, in some cases, banned. A few years ago Turkey banned YouTube because someone uploaded a video claiming that Ataturk (the founder of the Republic of Turkey and ornate public figure) was gay. For a country that wants to join the EU, this may not be a good measure.

One thing is for sure is that the internet has brought the world closer together and this indirectly leads to changes in the way people interact with each other and how business is done compared to the world before the internet. In fact, the Internet has opened up many business opportunities and, at the same time, has made business more challenging due to the effect of global competition.

With the explosion of the internet, social media marketing is now the future of marketing,

Social media tools like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter put them at the forefront. Geoff Livingston offers a dynamic definition of Social Media:

“Social networks … are the democratization and socialization of information, as well as the tools to facilitate online conversations. To put it another way, it is the shift from one-way to two-way conversations.”

Marketing has long been viewed as a distribution of information to your target audiences, that form of marketing is dying fast. Livingston talks about this by distinguishing “audiences” from “communities.” And in fact it constitutes a whole paradigm shift.

Marketers no longer have the option of treating people as audiences because people no longer have to sit and listen. People have options.

The reality is that marketers no longer have the option of not participating in community dialogue. The dialogue is happening whether we like it or not. We can close our eyes and expect them to say good things about our products and our company; Or we can help shape the conversation through our participation and, in turn, shape ourselves.

So it’s time to get on the dance floor and be part of the generation that is changing communication, marketing, brain function and probably much more to discover …