2008 marked an unprecedented augmentation and change of human interaction. The internet, the fastest growing medium, has essentially created a network for communication, distribution, and information. The internet and multimedia which is distributed throughout it has reformed the way people perform their daily duties and recreational activities. With over one billion people with access to the internet, it has become more than a simple data bank of information and basic websites. The internet has evolved to an interface where we can communicate with one another, buy, watch videos, access the news, and find entertainment. In essence cyberspace, websites and the tasks we perform have been transformed by the implementation of mass-media on the internet. The internet has overtaken every single aspect of our lives and accommodated it into one platform. Postal services have turned into emails, phone calls and text messages into IM, newspapers into news feeds, and board games into video games. Multimedia on internet is responsible for enhancing the way we interact with cyberspace. News is broadcasted live on websites with videos as well as access to archives. A person is able to listen to the news at any point of the day and access archives to review past events. Recreational activities are almost entirely performed through the internet with online video games and facebook networking. Facebook and instant messaging technologies simulate and substitute to some great extent human interaction. Even tedious tasks such as shopping have been made possible on the internet, now every major clothing conglomerate sells their product through the internet and delivers to your door. Despite the accommodations and convenience that are established through the internet multimedia is overtaking many necessary duties that we need to perform. As consumers we are faced with the prospect of doing groceries and Christmas shopping through online department stores such as Amazon.com and eBay.
Multimedia has transformed the internet in terms of its aesthetics to the point where it has become unrecognizable. Videos, music, high digital quality images, and appealing graphics have organized the web with its myriad of information into a place that is inviting and navigable. Multimedia allows us to broadcast things like television shows, radio shows (podcasts), or even us on our webcams on a medium accessible to millions. Multimedia has diversified the type of media that we can find on the web. The internet has become littered with animations, visualizations, and interactive applications which allow the users to communicate and interact with the information and users on the web. Multimedia has transformed other platforms of communications such as cellular phones. Today, it is possible to watch tv shows, sports games, and play games live from your 3rd generation cellular phone. Multimedia enhanced the way we communicate on cell phones as well; today we can handle a video call with others and send photos from our mobile phones to other people.
The greatest fear or repercussion that could arise from the expanded applications of multimedia is the idea that one day multimedia may control not most, but all the duties and chores we perform during our lives. This silent revolution is already underway, communication, interaction and recreation are already under the control of the internet. The internet has become a microcosm of our society there are people who police it, people who violate it, and people who commit crimes on it (hackers, identity theft). We are entering an age where we have our identities in the web as well as in real life. We have an address, profiles, credit card numbers, transactions, communications, and search histories embedded somewhere among the disordered and chaotic pages of the internet.
