Professional Skills in the Digital Age: Internet's Impact on Students

This report delves into the multifaceted impact of the internet on university students in the digital age. It begins by examining the positive and negative aspects of internet usage, such as enhanced learning opportunities and the potential for distraction and academic dishonesty. The report then addresses the critical issues of security and privacy, providing insights into the challenges students face and the measures they can take to protect their personal information. Furthermore, the report includes a comparison of various email providers, highlighting their features and suitability for business communication. Finally, it discusses the essential skills needed for the effective evaluation of online resources. This comprehensive analysis aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the digital landscape responsibly and successfully.

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
ASSESSMENT 1.............................................................................................................................3
Positive and Negative aspects of Internet on University Students.........................................3
Challenges and measures of security and privacy for students while using Internet.............5
ASSESSMENT 2.............................................................................................................................6
Comparison between features and applications of different email providers........................6
Skills needed for evaluation of resources online....................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
The use of internet is increasing in today's fast pace world. Internet has become most
essential tool which is needed by the knowledge-based people for information searching,
information management, communication with people, researching relevant data and even for
learning. But one needs to also take responsibility for personal privacy and security while
making use of the internet. The essay is presented in the report about the positive and negative
impacts of internet on the university students in the 21st century.
For every business organisation, communication acts as an essential and important
requirement so that it can become efficient and gain success. Internet is basic technology within
the development and growth of information technology which provides communication through
online. Information and Communication Technology is being mostly used by society at large and
thus has become extremely important. The report explains about comparison between features of
different email providers and also discusses about its application and suitability for businesses.
Further explaination is being provided about what skills are required for evaluating online
resources.
ASSESSMENT 1
Positive and Negative aspects of Internet on University Students
Technology and internet has effectively led to create new and creative way of learning for
the schools and university graduates. Various online learning programs implemented for
university students provides many benefits. The students can effectively develop their skills
through smart and innovative approaches of learning and they can also get seamless position in
today's competitive working environment (How Technology Has Transformed Education in the
21st Century, 2017).
Internet and technology has made significant changes on the education and learning. It
has made education more accessible for the university students. Through internet, students can
easily access for learning and education from various online courses. In the 21st century and
technological era, Laptops and tablets have replaced the use of three-ring binders and spiral
notebooks. Internet and technology has brought E-books which have become new way of life for
many learning institutions and universities. Students can gain benefits through online libraries
for analysing or researching any topic instead of going to physical library. Online libraries and

online resources also ensures that up-to-date and authentic information to university students.
The advent of internet and technology within the field of education, has led to bring positive
impact and has also improved role of teachers and students. University students in the 21st
century focus on gathering and gaining information and knowledge through using internet and
technology. The students are becoming responsible for their learning and education, whereas, in
traditional era, students played role of receiver of passive information only.
Internet also provides flexibility to students for learning at their pace through various
online courses provided by different colleges, universities and institutions. Such online programs
ensures that students can learn according to their disposable time and also their intellectual
ability. Technology provides various learning opportunities to students as for example, university
students can also follow expedition scientists team through reading their blogs, emails and even
through video conferencing with them (Abdel‐Basset and et.al., 2018). University students can
collaborate on study projects in groups by making use of internet tools such as Google docs or
Wikis. Online education and learning also creates accessibility and enable learning environment
for the students with special needs. Various technological applications are also availed by
technology and internet for assisting the students with special needs and they gain equal
opportunity at learning as well.
The increasing use of technology and internet by university students in the 21st century
may lead to bring negative impacts as well. Internet provides pool of sources for information
which can be accessed by students and creates no need for innovation and creativity. Students
fails to pay much attention and effort on their projects and assignments as they can easily access
the information through online resources and it leads to eliminate creativity in learning. The pool
of information sources can be used by students for doing their homework or coursework, which
may lead to increase cheating, plagiarism and academic fraud. The one more negative impact of
internet on university students is that they waste lots of their time on surfing internet. One of the
Washington Post stated that 9% of people tries for hiding non-essential use of internet. Addition
to this, a study conducted by Stanford University showed that approx 12.4 % participants stays
online for longer period than they intended (11 Negative Effects Of Internet On Students And
Teenagers, 2017).
University students cut down their studying and related activities by spending too much
of their available time on internet. Playing games, surfing internet, using social media websites

such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram are the activities that are done by students
rather than doing meaningful activities and studying. Internet also disrupts privacy as because of
free flow of information and it acts as privacy threat and negative impacts of internet and
technology. Students may share or update their class number, ID number or other information
related with personal security on the social networking sites. Such information can be accessed
and approached by any stranger and even misused.
Challenges and measures of security and privacy for students while using Internet
In the last decades, almost all elements of life and how things are done has been changed
or influenced by the increasing use of technology and internet. Group projects, online testing,
bus routes, students lunch allocation, access for assessment results are the ways for which data of
student is being used in 21st century and today's technological era. There is fear and risk
associated with the amount of data or information is being used by other and also their motive
behind it. Cyberbullying, gambling, inappropriate content, increasing screen time, self-harm,
theft of identity and various other issues are associated with the increasing use of internet (Sun
and et.al., 2018). There are certain measures and challenges associated with the use of internet
which needs to be considered while using it.
I need to follow certain measures of privacy and security while making use of the
internet. I can strengthen my privacy and security by implementing strong and unmatchable
passwords. Making use of combination of numbers, low and high case letters and symbols will
help me for craft a hard-to-crack password. I can also install anti-malware and antivirus
protection software for protecting and securing my personal data. These software are important
in the arsenal for online security weapons and acts as a last line in defence. In order to keep
privacy and security while using the internet, I need to focus on regularly updating the programs.
I need to make sure that my computer is properly updated and patched as this is the necessary
step for being fully safe and protected while using internet. Security application works best when
recently updated and keeps the users secured and safe.
In the 21st century, use of smartphones has also increased and such devices holds so much
of information. Everyone considers their smartphones most valuable and important device but it
can be easily accessed or stolen by anyone (Sabdel‐Basset and et.al., 2018). Thus, in order to
stay safe, I need to install encryption software, password protection and enabling remote wiping.
I need to stay safe on various social media websites such as Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

Keeping these accounts protected will help me to secure my personal data. Privacy controls of
accounts allows me to make my account information visible only to friends. While surfing on
any educational website, I need to ensure that information is securely stored and transmitted.
Ensuring that edtech tools which I am using needs to be encrypted for keeping the data protected
and safe.
While making use of internet and technology, I need to ensure that every tool's privacy
policy is in place. I focus on reading through each and every policy for ensuring that they stand
out on information privacy of students. I also ensure that such policies only work with tools
which are complied with guidelines of university's student data privacy (Castellacci, and Tveito,
2018). For example, California Student Privacy Alliance Agreement is signed by the Classtime,
this ensures that tools effectively meet state and federal laws related with student's data privacy. I
need install and make use of latest and useful security software, operating system and web
browser while using internet in order to keep my data private and secured. As these helps in
keeping a clean machine and also acts as a best defending tool against malware, viruses and also
other online threats.
ASSESSMENT 2
Comparison between features and applications of different email providers
In order to become successful and communicate effectively, business organisations focus
on using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This has become widely used and
extremely essential for sharing the information. Web acts as a strong collection if electronic
resources that can bring many benefits by carefully and effectively using and evaluating it.
Instead of various social networking buzz available through internet, emails still acts as a core of
formal and business communication. There are various email service providers such as Gmail,
Zoho Mail, Outlook.com, Mail.com, Yahoo! Mail, GMX and many more (11 of the Best Free
Email Service Providers for 2019, 2019). Different email service providers have different
features which can be suitable for different business organisation. Following is given the contrast
and comparison between different email service providers for business suitability and
application.
Gmail is considered as the best and most useful email service provider in today's world.
This email provider is free, simple and also user-friendly. Effective and useful features of Gmail

are suitable to most of businesses. This service provider offers over 10 GB free space storage.
The efficient feature list of Gmail also includes that it has excellent spam filter that makes it
different from various other service providers (Kho, Lakdawala and Nakasone, 2018). Gmail
also allows users to access this via various devices such as mobile, tablet, computer or laptop.
One remarkable feature of Gmail is that it has inline actions buttons which pop up on messages
in the inbox. This inline action buttons allows user with quick access for frequently used actions
such as archive message, deleting message, mark it as read or unread and snooze it.
The Gmail also has the built-in chat feature that allow user for having regular text chat
and also enjoy voice and video chats. One more effective feature of Gmail is that it offers
searching capabilities for finding the old or lost messages. Gmail messages are also grouped in
nice way with relevant replies option such as it allows reading messages in context. Gmail
service provider focus on offering customized email services for individuals businesses and
organisations. One needs to prove that the website belongs to them and then Gmail is ready to
help them for customizing their email. One can also host this on their server. The other
remarkable and excellent feature of Gmail is that its confidential mode through which user can
send self-destructing emails to other people or even messages which expires at chosen time. The
confidential mode or feature of Gmail allows user for disabling the ability of the email receipt for
copying it, downloading it or even forwarding it (Lin, 2019).
Yahoo! Mail is considered as the best email service providers that provides free services.
Yahoo! Mail allows user to gain benefits of various good and effective features. These features
can be availed through mobile devices and web. This email service provider focus on offering
users for unlimited storage for emails. Yahoo mail also provides interesting services such as
group chats, messenger, search engine and Yahoo answers. This email service provider keeps
updating the features and also remains transparent about the same always. The provider notifies
about its update to users through emails. Its mail template is easy for using and its folders are
easily differentiated such as inbox, sent, spam, etc.
Yahoo! Mail focus on saving mail data by automatically deleting the unwanted data after
90 days. The data storage capacity of Yahoo mail is higher as compared with Gmail. It allows 25
GB storage capacity and user can also use the preserve data from anywhere online. This email
service provider is concerned about user's account safety and security. User can also view slide-
shows, pictures or videos right from mailbox (Mazur, Signorella and Hough, 2019). User are

provided with this effective and excellent feature that they can share or send up to 100 MB file
size or 50 files within a single mail. The one more excellent feature of Yahoo mail is that it
automatically sorts the message of user. It focus on arranging or organising lower priority mails
or messages such as coupons or newsletter into the folders. One more remarkable feature of
Yahoo mail is Flickr which was acquired in March 2005. This is an image and video hosting
website which helps in preserving memorable moments in form of image or video. User can get
support from Yahoo Support in order to resolve various issues which are faced by them.
Skills needed for evaluation of resources online
Professional skills are required for evaluating the online and academic resources in
effective and proper manner. One needs to have basic computer knowledge and skills, basic
understanding for the web navigations and also foundational skill for problem and project based
instruction in order to effectively evaluate the online resources (Nguyen and et.al., 2018).
Effectively evaluating the online resources and content requires some set of skills such as proper
speed reading, skimming of article content and references citing. This can also be used for
effectively and efficiently summarising the gathered information and also recognising academic
arguments.
Hodgepodge of data or information is available on the internet resources thus, it is very
important for developing the evaluation skills so that it assists in identifying the quality websites
or webpages (The Complete Guide to Evaluating Online Resources, 2016). There are total six
criteria which needs to be applied for effectively and accurately evaluating the online resources,
and they are authority, objectivity, accuracy, coverage, currency and appearance.
Authority: Author of the web content is a major concern while considering about the
content eligibility. Author of the content needs to be an expert within the subject field discussed
in the web article. He/she needs to have credentials for backing up his knowledge for the subject
matter. I need to check the information about author which can be found on the webpage along
with content. Name of author is provided below the topic title or bottom of it or on the article's
side. Author's bio is available on the website only which needs to be effectively evaluated
(Parsazadeh, Ali and Rezaei, 2018).
Accuracy: This refers to author's correctness for use of language system. Accuracy
means that author's use of vocabulary and grammar needs to be correct and it needs to be as good
as it can be. Some minimal errors are generally present in every publication or article.

Grammatical mistakes and poor spelling of author can be easily reflected about carelessness of
author and which may lead to distrust as well. Various web resources are also prone for technical
errors as all online publications go under scrutinizing eyes of the copy editor. I need to
effectively verify the online resources for evaluating it.
Objectivity: The online resources clearly serves the objectivity and purpose. It teaches,
informs, explains and persuades user through the content of the article or publication. I need to
focus on reading the article properly so that it becomes evident about what the publication aims
for imparting to the readers. The author of the online article need not to be biased with his ideas
or views which is reflected in the publication, unless stated (Sun and et.al., 2018). I need to
comprehend whether article content is backed up with the facts or it is based on propaganda or
opinions.
Currency: For conducting the research online sources, timeliness and currency of the
data is important for making inferences for the collection and analysis of data. Currency is
considered as modern issues, as some websites updates their publication or article for adapting to
modern world. I need to check whether the data is relevant to current time or not. I can look for
publication date in order to collect latest and updated content.
Coverage: This refers to checking that topic of the article were successfully and
effectively were addressed or not. The online resource articles needs to be clearly present the
arguments and also have adequate support for substantiate them. I need to focus on finding out
that specific online source is presenting something new perspective on a particular topic or it just
summarising the content of other sources (Suryasa, Prayoga and Werdistira, 2018).
Appearance: I need to check whether this website is well-organised and do the provided
links work or not. Links are used for citing and providing credits references which are found on
other webpages. The appearance of the online resources needs to maintained as by presenting the
link of content proceeding to existing web page.
CONCLUSION
Various internet tools, class websites and mobile applications enables university students
for effectively managing their studies and coursework through online. Use of internet and
technology within the education field is proven to be the double-edged sword which means that
it provides both positive and negative impacts. The information technology and internet has
dramatically impacted the way of learning and teaching as compared with the traditional

learning. The internet acts as a innovative and creative way for learning, creating and having fun
but it comes up with challenges as well in form of security and privacy issues. Businesses can
compare service providers with their application and features including enough space for storage,
effective and good spam filter, user-friendly interface, easy mobile access and also availability
for desktop client. Effective resource evaluation skills can be used for searching electronic
resources, evaluating websites, critical thinking and covering note taking. Effective resource
evaluation skills help in finding and collecting good quality and relevant information.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Abdel‐Basset, M. and et.al., 2018. Internet of things in smart education environment: Supportive
framework in the decision‐making process. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and
Experience. p.e4515.
Castellacci, F. and Tveito, V., 2018. Internet use and well-being: A survey and a theoretical
framework. Research Policy. 47(1). pp.308-325.
Kho, K., Lakdawala, L. K. and Nakasone, E., 2018. Impact of Internet Access on Student
Learning in Peruvian Schools (No. 2018-3).
Lin, Y. T., 2019. Impacts of a flipped classroom with a smart learning diagnosis system on
students' learning performance, perception, and problem solving ability in a software
engineering course. Computers in Human Behavior. 95. pp.187-196.
Mazur, E., Signorella, M. L. and Hough, M., 2019. The Internet Behavior of Older Adults.
In Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Media and Communications (pp. 405-
416). IGI Global.
Nguyen, Q. T. and et.al., 2018. Primary education in Vietnam and pupil online
engagement. International Journal of Educational Management. 32(1). pp.71-83.
Parsazadeh, N., Ali, R. and Rezaei, M., 2018. A framework for cooperative and interactive
mobile learning to improve online information evaluation skills. Computers &
Education. 120, pp.75-89.
Sun, G. and et.al., 2018. Big Data and Internet of Things—Fusion for different services and its
impacts.
Suryasa, I. W., Prayoga, I.G.P.A. and Werdistira, I., 2018. Attitudes toward the use of internet
for students. International journal of physical sciences and engineering. 2(2). pp.32-38.
Online
11 Negative Effects Of Internet On Students And Teenagers. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://vkool.com/negative-effects-of-internet/>
11 of the Best Free Email Service Providers for 2019. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.technorms.com/14035/10-free-email-service-providers>
How Technology Has Transformed Education in the 21st Century. 2017. [Online]. Available
through: <https://ctovision.com/technology-transformed-education-21st-century/>