The Past, Present and the Future of the Internet

THE PAST, PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET; AND HOW IT’S AFFECT THE ENVIRONMENT. Abstract The present paper connotes problems with the uses of the internet nowadays and the implication of it especially to the environment. This research will start from the early stage of the internet, then goes to the current IT industry and lastly what do we aspect in the future based on what we already achieved today. This research also is conducted purposely to make people understand the risk of it as this issue is not having been discussed openly with others.There is no argument for the rapid development in IT industry will make the life getting easier, but we also need to know behind the curtain about this technology as human invention will never get perfect. Table of content Page 1) Introduction4 2) Literature review6 3) Methodology8 4) Findings / Data Analysis9 5) Discussion on Findings13 6) Conclusion15 7) References17 8) Appendix 18 1) INTRODUCTION 1. Background of Study Internet is disruptive. Largely for better, internet has disrupted the way we travel, communicate, conduct business, produce, socialize and manage our homes and lives.This disrupt ability has potential to reduce our dependence on dirty energy and make society cleaner, more efficient and powered renewability. Parts of our individual lives are becoming more efficient even as we consume more. Internet can enable us to cut down on energy intensive practice by allowing us to work from home with teleconferencing and telecommuting tools. Now we can read our electricity use in real time and manage it better accordingly. We also can stream music on the internet instead of taking up space on our hard drive.Nevertheless, as we applaud the positive, visible impacts and measurable, game changing potential of internet, we also need to pay attention to what is behind the curtain. The internet sector has a choice to make as the demand for internet based product and service has grows exponentially. In the U nited States, Europe and particularly in developing economies such as India and China, so does amount of data we produce globally. 2. Statement of problem The increasing of uses of internet rapidly consumes more energy for them to provide the service.It is a good sign of our technology. Unfortunately, most of Internet Company facilities are still use coal based energy to power up their data centre and its office. This problem should not take lightly as million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) had been release in the air as a result of us who are using the internet uncontrolled every day. With the releasing the large amount of CO2 to the air, it will decrease our ozone layer that can result many damaged and catastrophic to the earth such as climate change, global warming and skin cancer.So this problem can contribute to be cause of many disasters that we already face these days. 3. Objective of study I. To find out the usage of internet and digital device from the past to the future. I I. To understand the impact of rapid developing technology and the internet to the environment. 4. Research questions The research questions that have been formulated for this study are: I. Does use of internet can contribute to pollution? II. How much damaged of this technology to the environment? 2) LITERATURE REVIEWThe internet history was started from 29 October 1969, when the first message in ARPANET (Advance Research Project Agency Network) between computers at UCLA (University California, Los Angeles) to another computer in Stanford Research Institute. The first message that had been sent is a word ‘LOGIN’ but the computer at UCLA suddenly crashed and only word ‘LO’ that had been sent. In early development, there’re only 4 computers in the network which is UCLA, Stanford, UTAH and University of California, Santa Barbara. Now, we have millions of computers including portable device that can access the internet in one time (Prouser, 2011).After 40 years since the first message in ARPANET, now we get the benefit from it. After countless of development, internet nowadays can be access almost everywhere. The internet technology was rapidly evolved faster than automotive industry. The device that we use to access the internet also becomes more powerful. Now, we can get faster speed access, increased of storage capabilities, and broader device connectivity such as hand phone and tablet PC besides of desktop computers and laptop (Neolabels, 2010). The number of internet user was reached to 3 billion users in 2010 (Cisco, 2011).To support the huge amount of users, there are currently about 44 millions servers in the world. This amount of servers were contribute about 2% of carbon emissions or the same average of aviation industry or medium size country such as Argentina and Sweden (Forrest, Kaplan, & Kindler, 2008). This is because, according to Gary Cook & Jodie Van Horn (April 2011), â€Å"The technologies of the 21st century are still largely powered by the dirty coal power of the past, with over half of the companies rated herein relying on coal for between 50% and 80%of their energy needs.This means the internet industry also producing carbon emissions like other company despite that we did not realize it† (p. 5). they also claims that we have generated 1. 2 zettabytes of digital information with our tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook status updates, iTunes downloads, emails and other data transfers. In another study, Koomey (2008) finds out that worldwide electricity used by data centres are doubled from 2000 to 2005. The data centre's that house this explosion of digital information currently consume more than 3% of US electricity, and approximately 1. % to 2% of global electricity, growing at a rate of approximately 12% annually. Greenpeace ( March 2010) had release their report called Make IT Green; claims the electricity consumption of data centres may be as much as 70% higher than previously predicted. The combined electricity demand of the internet globally is 662bn kWh and would rank the fifth among countries beating electricity consumption in India, Germany, Canada, Brazil and United Kingdom. According to the information that taken from the web publication from Cisco, ‘networking solutions sub solution’ retrieved from http://www. mashable. om (2010) by; Internet traffic is projected to approach 1 zettabyte per year in 2015; that is equivalent of all the digital data in existence in 2010. Regionally speaking, traffic is expected to more than double in the Middle East and Africa, where there will be an average of 0. 9 devices per person for a projected population of 1. 39 billion. Latin America is close behind, with a 48% increase in traffic and an estimated 2. 1 devices per person among a population of 620 million. 3) METHODOLOGY The research is mainly focus on IIUM students in all major from different background of kuliyyah.This is because to make it ea sy and not bias only to specific student or specific respondent. Unfortunately, the research did not include respondent of the outside of IIUM because of a few limitation. The respondents were also selected from the mahallah to respond the questionnaires. 1. Population and Sampling Approximately the questionnaires that were been delivered to the IIUM students are about 20 questionnaires. By using random sampling, they were distributed the questionnaire to the student and then take it back after they finish with the questionnaire. 0 respondents were selected from male student and 10 more respondents from the female student around the IIUM campus and mahallah. 2. Instrumentation and Data Collection The data about uses of the internet is gathered by making the survey. In the survey, the data was collected by answering a set of questionnaire which consists of 8 questions. The survey question, the students were asked about their own experience and how regularly they are on using internet in their basic life every day. The survey form is divided to two sections which are section A and B. ection A is for responded personal information and section B is for closed-ended questions. 4) FINDINGS / DATA ANALYSIS 1. Findings 2. Data analysis Based on the survey made during the research, the first question which is determine whether they are using the internet or not, the result shows that all or 100% of the respondents are using the internet. This is because the policy and method on the IIUM itself in encouraging their student to use internet. They need to use the internet at least for register their subject for new semester in their year of study.Other than that, the students also need to use the internet to search the source of their assignment and learning throughout the semester. The second question was to determine how frequent the respondent to access the internet in one week. Based on my survey, at was it is clearly shows that most of them, which consist of 58% are a ccessing the internet every day. It was left others option by far which is only 26% of respondent are accessing in 4 to 6 days a week, followed by 2 to 3 days, 11% and lastly once a week which is 5%. From this question,The next question that was asked in the survey was the time they spent every day on the internet. Most of them spent their time on internet about 1 to 3 hours a day. It was followed by respondent that only spent less than 1 hour which consists about 30% and lastly, only 10% of them are surfing more than 3 hours a day. Social network are the most often website that the respondent visit compare to the other type of website. There is 50% of them are spent their time surfing on the internet by visiting to social network such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, BlogSpot, and online game. 5% of the respondents are frequently use internet for multimedia website such as YouTube, Vivo, and also music download website. The third place goes to was on instant messaging which contribut e about 15% of the respondent. They prefer to use Yahoo Chat, Google Talk or Facebook chat when they are on-line. Unfortunately, only 10% of them are using the internet for check their e-mail. This result shows that respondent are using the internet for entertainment and socialize rather than use it for something that really beneficial to them. The next question that was asked in the survey was the number of devices that they have.This question is to prove that in the future, the number of device on every person is increasing. In the survey, the result found that most of them have at least one or two device which consists of 45% and 40% respectively. This result was influence of many students at least has laptop or desktop on them besides of cell phone that also can access the internet. Only 5% of them did not have and 10% have 3 or more device that can access the internet. The types of device that respondent have been asked on the question number six in the survey. As expected, mos t of them, which is 95% have laptop or desktop which can access the internet.Hand phone was on the second place which consist 13 respondent or 65% of the respondent have this device that can access the internet. Only 15% and 10% of them have tablet PC and other device such as music player and gaming device. The result on question seven was surprising. From the survey, only 8 respondents hear about the pollution that can occur from the uses of the internet which consist only 40% of them. Other respondents never heard about this topic ever before. From this question, we can see that there are still a lot of people that are not aware about this issue.This is because the pollution effect is we barely can see in naked eye. Also, this pollution is majorly consumed by IT Company rather than a person. The question number eight that was asked in the survey is about the source of information that respondent get about the issue. From the survey, we can conclude that the respondent majorly hear d about this issue from newspaper or magazine which contributes about 33%, followed by from internet which is 25%. Both source, which is from friends and educations or lecture are only consist about 17%. Lastly, 8% of the respondent had heard this issue from other resource such as advertisement and seminar. ) DISCUSSION ON FINDINGS The finding shows that majorly students in IIUM have the experience in using the internet. The finding is very contrast if we done this research back to 10 years before. In that day, only a few of student who have the computer and it can be categorized as a luxury item (Leiner B, Cerf V, Clark D, (2001). This situation is parallel to the point that the development of IT technology is faster than other technology such as automobile and builds construction. The time IIUM student spent on the internet also very long. Most of them spent their time about 1 to 3 hours a day.By the time passed, they do not realized how they are wasting their time in front of the ir laptop every day only for checking their Facebook, reading about gossip on the blog, even watching videos on Youtube. This is the reflect on the example that Allah stated in al-Quran: â€Å"By Al-Asr (the time). Verily! Man is loss. Except such as have faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and Patience and Constancy† (p. 601). With the amount of device that respondent have in this day, there is not impossible that the users of internet will be quadruple in 2015.The increase of smart device in the market and more affordable electronic device that use and can access the internet, slowly increase the chance for the people to connect to the internet in the future. This theory also being supported by Odlyzko (2000) who forecasted the explosive growth in small mobile devices, which will often have small storage and low bandwidth over wireless links, and thus will be most useful if they can get data from local storage. This model also allows for easy integration with special hardware for intellectual property protection. Unfortunately, there is still a small amount of us that aware about this issue.This might be the lack of information that can be spread to the people as a clear lack of transparency from major IT brands is the one biggest reason behind this imprecision. (Teske, 2010). The other reason is this pollution is not majorly contributed from the users. The pollution are majorly contribute from the IT company that use a huge amount of energy to power up the system. They need that energy to fulfill the demand needed by users. 6) CONCLUSION In conclusion, this research has investigated the revolution of the internet from the beginning to the present, until what we aspect in the uture and the effect of the most rapid developing technology to the environment. As mentioned earlier in the introduction, the purpose of this study was to find out usage of internet and digital device from the past to the future an d to understand the impact of rapid developing technology and internet to the environment. The results of the investigation show that there are no sign of decreasing in internet development in current time or in the future. The technology was continuously evolve and every day, more people start using internet in their daily life.Despite of all effort that big tech company done to minimize the effect, there is still possibilities that the pollution that cause from internet uses become worse as the users are increasing from day to day. The limitation of this research is in the methodology which is I only done the data collection around the IIUM and not outside. This will make the data value are not really accurate. As we all know, there are still people do not use internet in their entire live especially some people that live in the village or some area that did not have internet coverage area.Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, here are several recommendations to be c onsidered. Firstly, as for the big tech company that provide internet service and using data centre, they can use other energy source to power it up rather than rely heavily to coal based energy. For example, even though Facebook Company relies heavily on coal energy, their data centre was powered up by mixing it with wind and solar energy, saving about 2. 5 million kWh per year or 1,065 tonnes of CO2. Other method is by using virtualizing.Virtualizing is a method of running multiple independent virtual operating systems on a single physical computer. It is a way to maximizing physical resources to maximize the investment in hardware. For example, from 200 servers, we can reduce it to only 25 servers by using this method. It can save thousands of energy per year and reduce the cost of maintenance. As for the user, we can contribute by minimizing the uses if internet by reducing the time that we consume to surf the internet and also only access the internet when we really need to acc ess it. 7) REFERENCE Al-Quran, Surah Al-Asr: 1-3.Cook, G. (2011). How dirty is your data? A look at the energy choices that power cloud computing. Amsterdam. Greenpeace International. Cisco (2010). Networking solutions sub solution. Retrieved from http://www. mashable. com Forrest, W. , Kaplan, J. M. & Kindler, N. (2008). Data Centers: How to Cut Carbon Emissions and Costs. McKinsey & Company. Greenpeace (2010). Make IT green: cloud computing and its contribution to climate change, Greenpeace International. Koomey, G. (2008). Worldwide electricity used in data centre. Environment Research Letters. IOP Publishing. Leiner, B, et al. (2001).The past and future history of the internet. Communication of the ACM. Neolabels (2010). Digital life: today and tomorrow. Retrieves from http://digitallife. neolabels. com Odlyzko, A. (2000). The history of communications and its implications for the Internet. AT Labs Research. Prouser. (2011). Where the internet was born. Retrieved from http://www . reuters. com/news Teske, S. (2010). Energy [r]evolution: a sustainable world energy outlook. Greenpeace International, European Renewable Energy Council (EREC). 8) APPENDIX SURVEY ABOUT THE USERS OF INTERNET AMONG THE IIUM STUDENTS SECTION A AGE: |LEVEL OF STUDY : | |GENDER : |NATIONALITY : | SECTION B 1) Do you use the internet? Yes No *(if yes, the survey ends here) 2) In a week, how many days do you spend in the internet? Once A Week2-3 Days A Week 4-5 Days A WeekEvery Day 3) In average, how much time do you spend in the internet? Less than 1 hour1-3 hoursMore than 3 hours 4) What type of website do you often visit when surfing the internet? Social NetworkMultimedia E-MailInstant Messaging 5) How many device(s) do you have that can access the internet? Not HaveOne TwoThree or More 6) What kind of devices do you have that can access the internet? Laptop/Desktop PCHandphone Tablet PCOthers: _____________ 7) Do you ever heard about the pollution that occurs from the uses of the in ternet? Yes No 8) If yes, where do you hear about this? Newspaper/MagazineFriends InternetEducations/Lectures Others: _____________ SURVEY ENDS HERE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION