The Internet: What will it do?

What impact will the internet have on society?  this is the question that the ECN201 students were asked and their answers suggest that they have begun to envision the future and the internets role in shaping it..  One of the the most popular 'targets' is the personal finance industry.  Nick Ucci, Mike Clegg and Katrina Shade, back from her nap in class, see the brokerage industry as ripe for change because, as Katrina says: it "is becoming easier and easier to invest and trade over the web."  The take off will come when the "generations growing up on computers will not be as obsessed with the idea of personal service.  Muhammad Shloul expects to see accounting changed as "people will do all of their accounting on the internet."

The second popular choice is shopping.  Nick Ucci, Brooke Cherko, and Albert Cost sees the impact on shopping, a point raised by Lee Ann Krafton  - "with the click of a button it is simple and convenient to shop various catalogue stores right from the comfort of your own living room."  She cites examples from grocery shopping and to buying a car as examples of the inroads it is making, although she raises concerns about safety on the internet and the fact that it may bring out "the ultimate in human laziness." Inhee Rebecca Lee and Jessica Deratzian expects we are not far from reading our daily newspapers on-line which will cause problems for the newsstands.  Heather Patnode, sees a change in the relationship between parents and children since children will use the net to get answers to questions that they used to ask their parents.

Colleen Stadelmann and Sarah Boland see the book market as a prime candidate for change and envisions books being replaced by CDs.  Certainly Amazon.com has changed the way we can buy our books. Jessica Palmer sees the clothing industry and Shannon Rodrigues sees the department store as being impacted by the internet, but Nydia Xiong does not "believe that the fashion industry will make it "big" with the internet."  Molly Shadrick, however, sees the fashion industry changing but not until we have body scans and credit card safety.  The theme is that shopping takes time - and that the internet can reduce that time.  For those who have spent time in school, Nydia also sees that "kids won't have to go to school anymore, they can just turn on their computer and virtually be in class."  Taylor Meltzer sees the internet shopping as reducing family time since shopping is a time spent with family. 

And let's not forget the porno industry that Monhtry Douangmala sees as a beneficiary of the web as people can avoid the embarrassment of shopping for porno in stores.  maybe there is something here given the reported growth of the on-line porn business.