Chapter 2 - Questioning Review

1. What was your first encounter with the Internet like? How did it compare with your first encounters with other mass media?
- My first encounter with the internet was back in elementary school when I had to look up information for class. Prior to this, I only used the computer for games; not necessarily the internet because at the time I had no idea how the internet worked. At this point, I had more frequent encounters with the internet and opened up a new world to me. I realized there was more to the internet than just looking up information. I used to stay on the computer for hours at a time just browsing around. My interaction with the radio was quite different than the internet. My family always involved music around anything we did. Whether it was parties, family gatherings, or dinners. The radio was nothing new to me at this point. I remember playing with dials on the radio in the car. My first response was always wondering how the people on the radio were able to talkl and me hear them while driving in the car. Shortly after, I soon learned how radio communications actually worked.

2. What possibilities of the Internet's future are you most excited about? Why? What possibilities are most troubling? Why?
- The possibilities of the Internet's future that I am most excited about would be the new search engines and the hopes of having a stronger security system while online. Having a stronger and more advanced search engine can allow better opportunities for research. I twoud allow people to have more options than the basic search engines. I can see within the next few years the internet will have a stronger security system. That way people can feel safe putting in personal information on the computer or to do everyday things such as pay billls or shop online. That is why some people, including myself, are very hesitant to buy things online because I never know  who would catch my information or try to while being online. I believe the most troubling about the internet's future would be if the internet crashes or if the internet started to charge everytime you logged in or got onto the internet. The economy now is already in financial struggle so less househoulds are using internet access. If the government does decide that the internet should have a service charge, there would be less people signing onto the internet.

5. As we move from a print-oriented Industrial Age to a digitally based Information Age, how do you think individuals, communities, and nations will be affected?
- Individuals will be affected because not everyone has the access to see or read about news online and rely on things such as newspaper to read about what is going on in their communities and neighbors. The internet may be a little advanced for some, especially the ones from an earlier generation. The communities will be affected because some people have jobs within the mass media such as the newspaper. If the future turns everything into electronic based that means that some individuals may lose their source of a job. The nation as a whole would not be affected has hard as inviduals and communites because it would actually do the complete opposite. If the nation went all digital, that means that less newspapers would be sent out and that means less paper being used. There is always a talk about "going green" this would be apart of that project. It can always be a good thing if less things are being used to save and reserve.