The internet truly is a double-edged sword. For every advancement it's brought, there are also a plethora of negatives, leaving public opinion in constant flux as to whether it's had a net positive effect on our lives. 

On the one hand, with an incredible abundance of knowledge at our fingertips, we've never had a greater opportunity to educate ourselves – to foster new hobbies, discover distant cultures, and build new relationships. On the other hand, the extent to which our fundamental privacies are systematically eroded continues to be a raging debate, and the effects of the rapid adoption of social media – especially by children – are to be rightly questioned. 

Today, though, we're going to be more optimistic and talk about the benefits: how we can use the tools available via the modern internet to enrich our lives rather than get sucked up by the algorithms. This is a vast topic, so we'll narrow it down to three scorching areas to give you a rundown of what's essential.

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A.I.

Artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room; in many ways, it represents a microcosm of the double-edged sword described above. 

Undoubtedly, the risks associated with A.I. are serious. While many attribute the dangers to that of General A.I. (a fully sentient artificial intelligence with the possibility of capabilities vastly exceeding the human species), a more immediate and encroaching risk is how A.I. language models, brought about with the advent of Chat GTP, are rapidly changing the way we use the internet. 

Whether these changes represent a net positive or net negative is far beyond the scope of this article, but A.I. can help you. 

For example, given the databases these language models are trained on, they can be an incredibly powerful tool for studying. Rather than researching each aspect of a project, you can have the A.I. giA.I.ou a rough assimilation of the relevant information, which you can then use to do your own tailored research. This takes out a lot of guesswork and effort expended at the beginning of a research project. 

While you should always double-check and verify any information provided by A.I., summarising information also has benefits. You can prompt them to boil a topic down in however much detail you desire, which, once again, diminishes the laborious nature of searching up individual elements online and pulling them together yourself. 

People have also derived advantages from chatbots when learning a language. For example, you can prompt the chatbot to act as a conversational partner, even telling it to respond with answers attuned to your individual language level. As you can imagine, this service is scalable to many use cases beyond language learning.  

Building Professional Networks

Of course, one of the internet's most significant benefits is also one of its greatest risks: how it enables us to connect with others. 

While most negative associations relate to social networks, the same isn't necessarily true for professional networks. Especially in a post-COVID world—where there are a much smaller number of public networking events and with many people now working from home—using the internet to network has become very important. 

Websites like LinkedIn have become essential products for professionals and organizations. They offer an unprecedented opportunity to expand your connections by connecting with not only your peers and contemporaries but also potential employers and industry leaders. 

Outside of strictly professional platforms, sites like Reddit offer rich communities for virtually any profession. By signing up for an anonymous account, you can ask questions and help others in a similar position. While not a replacement for physical events, these sites can offer a sense of community that many industries need to improve.

Engaging with these online communities lets you stay on top of industry trends and news. Otherwise, it may become easy to get out of the loop, especially if you're working from home.

If you're not doing so already and have a business, you should also investigate using Zoom, Skype, or Google Meet to consult with clients. Industries across the board have adopted teleconferencing technologies to work seamlessly with clients without having to have physical face-to-face communication, and this sort of technology vastly opens up the market you can tap into. 

Most of these systems are also integrated into a global calendar that automatically adapts to timezone discrepancies between provider and client, making it easier than ever to connect with people worldwide. 

Gamified Learning

The way we learn has changed drastically compared to twenty years ago. Whatever you want to learn, you can be sure that someone has used the internet to innovate and provide a novel method that, given the smartphone revolution, can seamlessly integrate with your life. 

Gamified learning, for example, has become incredibly popular. Where some of the earliest websites were set up to educate (and indeed, the internet itself was born out of an educational environment), sites like Khan Academy and Kahoot have honed the process into a universally loved method – as have apps like Duolingo and Memrise. You also have access to a huge number of brainteasers for free online that you can use to pass the time, whether it's playing chess or completing a crossword. At the same time, these games don't educate towards a specific end or topic; they've been shown to be good for your brain and provide a better time killer than scrolling endlessly on social media.

It will be exciting to see how gamified learning develops in the coming years. There's already been significant adoption of gamified methods in schools and universities, such as integrating educational websites into children's homework or using sites such as Mentimeter for increased engagement during lectures. 

A.I. and Virtual Reality have been pinpointed as the new frontiers of the educational environment, so we'll have to wait and see how these technologies combine and what innovations they could bring. Right now, though, there's plenty to enjoy, so take a look at what's on offer within your particular area of interest (for these sorts of questions, it can be helpful to use one of the A.I. chA.I.ts we described earlier, or do a search on Reddit for a specific board that covers your topic).

Wrapping Up

There's both a lot to love and a lot to dislike about the current state of the internet, but that doesn't mean you can't choose to adopt the good stuff and reject the negative elements. The internet is a tool, and how you use it represents the possible benefits you can glean from it. 

This article has offered you some inspiration. Given the scope of the topic, there was a lot we couldn't cover, so be sure to visit the links provided for more detailed information on each topic we explored.