Cyber World: Charms and Challenges

People used to hear of news within the week, now it is in the moment.

Books have been the main source of obtaining information and discovering a world of knowledge, imagination, and exploration throughout all periods of time.

In chapter 2 of The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser, after discussing how although two newspapers still create the base of almost all news stories that get shared online, newspapers are failing daily. He then explains how news became centered around “public opinion” instead of just information about the outside world. Pariser reminds us that:

Our lives have become busier and therefore there is less time for complex gaming. Casual game use is on the rise as such games are simple and can be played quickly (“The Rise and Rise of Casual Gaming,” 2008). Jesse Schell (2010) observes games are becoming an extension of our real life, for example, fitness trackers and Wii fit, ‘brain exercising’ apps to ward off dementia, good driver apps that are provided by car insurance companies, point systems for shopping rewards and weight watchers. We can even compete with others in these games using leader boards. In the future there may be reward systems for brushing your teeth or using public transport (Schell,

Many historians have come to believe that with an increase to mass communication, whether that is the invention of the newspaper or the internet news travels faster than its predecessor. For example, receiving

There is a beauty in books. Each book opens up your mind to a world unknown. Each page of a book makes you think to yourself "what's going to happen next?". Books give you thoughts and opinions. Books teach you things you never knew. They allow you to escape reality and enter someone else's world. Books

have the more dissatisfied you become. Society has come to show us how technology is slowly

Books have fueled me in all my endeavors. They are something that I wish to share with others. As I've gotten older, books have always been there opening up doors to new worlds.

The American public rarely reads the newspaper anymore because most people do not think the news is of that much

The early 1900’s could be called the consolidation era as technological changes and competition for advertising dollars increased the competitive drive for circulation numbers. In response to these changes, many newspaper chains grew as smaller newspapers were gobbled up and absorbed into the chains or became obsolete. Complementing the glitz of the roaring twenties, a new form of journalism emerged that appealed to a different type of reader with its illustrious smaller size. But, as economic conditions worsened into the 1930’s, circulation increased while revenues did not. This is mostly due to advertising dollars being split between radio and television as both gained in popularity. By 1945, newspapers had declined to their lowest and continued to drop further alongside continued consolidation efforts into the 1970’s. While daily circulation declined, chains and printing expenses grew. The closer we got to the turn of the century and the digital age, readership dropped significantly as young readers pursued other options for news (Dominick, 2013).

newspaper, many now just go online to the news website. In a similar fashion television

One central idea in this text was the decline in the number of people who read the newspaper. Finley states “The biggest decline occurred between October 2008 and March 2009, when the average sales declined 7.1 percent from the same time period a year earlier.” This statement shows how the numbers declined. Most people that are using the internet to get news do not understand how most of the information is not based on facts like the newspapers are. Newspaper base their information on the important and historical stuff that happens in the world, but the internet base their information on entertainment that attracts more teenage views. Most journalist try to attract the views of teenagers, but newspapers try not to focus on entertainment as much as the internet.

“Cyberspace is not a physical place - it defies measurement in any physical dimension or time space continuum. It is a shorthand term that refers to the environment created by the confluence of cooperative networks of computers, information systems, and telecommunication infrastructure commonly referred to as the World Wide Web” (Wingfield 2007, 45).

In 1760, The Boston News-Letter was the first newspaper to be continuously published in the United States. A 250-year legacy of printed news could not have lasted if it newspapers didn't not have it uses. Aside from the entertainment value, newspapers exist for the main purpose of bringing news of international, national, and local news to the doorsteps of the people. Without such frequent and stable form of communication, it would be difficult for any nation to call itself a free democracy. Today however, it cannot be expected that newsprint will last forever. Statistical data firmly suggests newspapers around the world are falling both in number and circulation. The past several years have been difficult for newspapers as other news

What was astonishing was not the rapidity of the news- that is, after all, the beauty of modern broadcasting technology- but the effect that the news had on the public. In the following weeks and months, story after story demonstrated the