New Media: Helpful or dangerous?

Today we had a discussion about new media. Are new media only a kind of a new useful tool or technical device which helps us to live an easier life, therefore a life we never had before or are new media dangerous as well?

We started this discussion in our Fishbowl exercise which I attended and I found the idea of the danger of new media very interesting. Of course, I asked myself very often before about the danger of new media, but I never had such an interesting and versatile discussion containing such a variety of different arguments/pros and cons/ concerning new media before.

On the one hand, today there are many different types of “useful” new media, such as: Internet, E-Mail, DVD, Blu-ray, CD-ROM, MP3 and so on. These are all new digital “tools”, but definitely very useful to make our lives easier.

On the other hand new media also turned out to be very dangerous as well. There are millions of Internet users who misuse the World Wide Web every day by for example uploading and downloading Child pornography materials. Moreover, new media and especially the Internet provide a platform for pedophiles as well as for other criminals. So, what about the fast growing numbers of cybercrimes like Child pornography or cyber bullying on Facebook for example?

There is also the point of cyber addiction when people for example live a second life on the Internet (e.g. World of Warcraft) and are not able to handle their usual lives any more.

All these above mentioned facts are just some examples, but clearly show the danger of new media in our today’s society. Although there are various advantages of new media on the one hand there are also several disadvantages of new media on the other hand as well. New media are still so very young in our today’s world and the future will hopefully show how useful or how dangerous new media really are.