Benefits of Researching on the Internet

There are many benefits that can be gained by researching on the Internet. Not only is the level of research that can be achieved on the Internet relevant to today’s university students, but these benefits are also available to high school and adolescents.  

For today’s university students, one can argue that sources from the Internet are now dominating over the use of reference books, academic journals, and articles. Although some would state that this is a negative issue, as sources that are found on the Internet may have the risk of not being from an academic and fully published source, others would disagree. Academics often state that the Internet to some extent is more superior than texts due to the fact that it has the ability to be regularly updated, thus the information that is presented on the website can always be updated at a minimal cost. Furthermore, although articles that are found from the Internet may not necessary come from a recognized source, I believe that it makes university students who are researching a topic less subject to bias. One of the major benefits of the Internet is that it has the ability to cater for everyone. Not every publication that is found at the library has the ability to achieve this goal.  

When writing about an issue, the language, sentence structure, grammar, and tone used often persuades the reader and forces them to see only the discourse and ideology of the author. However, some resources found in publications have the risk of being outdated as well as being inappropriate to the research area, thus the Internet is a lot more flexible. This is because if information found on a certain website does not cater for your needs, then one can easily go to another website. Many more websites are available on the Internet compared to the resources that are available in the library, due to the large amount of space that is required to store volumes of books. Furthermore, a book must have a publisher’s approval if it is to be published, whilst there is a lot more freedom for people on the Internet. Anyone can write blogs and do postings on forum discussions. This is a huge benefit to university researchers as they are able to receive a wider range of ideologies and perspectives from critically analyzing multiple sources. 

Secondly, high school students are utilizing more of the Internet due its flexibility and also because the Internet offers them the opportunity to hold online discussions. This has been found to be an effective way of learning for adolescents, as stated by the National Institute of Mental Health. This organization states, “During adolescence, friendships themselves become increasingly important predictors of the individuals’ personal developing competence.” (Cooper and Cooper, 1992). This means that if an adolescent has the opportunity to develop friendships and engage in academic debates, they are then more likely to be competent in the future workforce. The Internet is an effective medium for adolescents to enhance their technological skills and also to learn more about various software programs. Also, by interacting with friends over the Internet they have the opportunity to increase their typing speeds, which is useful for university. They are also able to develop their research skills by learning how to research more quickly on search engines.  

Finally, I believe that although there needs to be a balance maintained in terms of usage of a variety of sources, ranging from primary sources to secondary sources, I am confident that the Internet is a superior way to research about various issues and interests.  

By Bernice Ly

http://www.m6.netSources Used for research:

Cooper and Cooper, (1992) ‘Abstract’ The National Institute of Health [Online] http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:tRmFvpUQ_9sJ:www.people.virginia.edu/~psykliff/pubs/publications/murfsrcd2001.pdf+adolescents++AND+interaction&hl=en