national institute of management, karachi

individual research paper

ON
“use OF INTERNET”

29th Mid Career Management Course

(03rd February to 08th May 2020)

By

Muhammad Aqil Kamil

Ex-Cadre (NIM)

Signature :
Date : 07th February, 2020
Paper Supervised by :
Abstract
Manufacturing industry profoundly impact economic and societal progress. As being a
commonly accepted term for research centers and universities, the Industry 4.0 initiative has
received a splendid attention of the business and research community. Although the idea is not
new and was on the agenda of academic research in many years with different perceptions, the
term “Industry 4.0” is just launched and well accepted to some extend not only in academic life
but also in the industrial society as well. While academic research focuses on understanding and
defining the concept and trying to develop related systems, business models and respective
methodologies, industry, on the other hand, focuses its attention on the change of industrial
machine suits and intelligent products as well as potential customers on this progress. It is
therefore important for the companies to primarily understand the features and content of the
Industry 4.0 for potential transformation from machine dominant manufacturing to digital
manufacturing. In order to achieve a successful transformation, they should clearly review their
positions and respective potentials against basic requirements set forward for Industry 4.0
standard. This will allow them to generate a well-defined road map. There has been several
approaches and discussions going on along this line, a several road maps are already proposed.
Some of those are reviewed in this paper. However, the literature clearly indicates the lack of
respective assessment methodologies. Since the implementation and applications of related
theorems and definitions outlined for the 4th industrial revolution is not mature enough for most
of the reel life implementations, a systematic approach for making respective assessments and
evaluations seems to be urgently required for those who are intending to speed this
transformation up. It is now main responsibility of the research community to developed
technological infrastructure with physical systems, management models, business models as well
as some well-defined Industry 4.0 scenarios in order to make the life for the practitioners easy. It
is estimated by the experts that the Industry 4.0 and related progress along this line will have an
enormous effect on social life. As outlined in the introduction, some social transformation is also
expected. It is assumed that the robots will be more dominant in manufacturing, implanted
technologies, cooperating and coordinating machines, self-decision-making systems, autonom
problem solvers, learning machines, 3D printing etc. will dominate the production process.
Wearable internet, big data analysis, sensor based life, smart city implementations or similar
applications will be the main concern of the community.
List of Abbreviations
ACL Access Control List
API Application Program Interface
ARP Address Resolution Protocol
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode
BIOS Basic Input/Output System
CD-ROM Compact Disc Read-Only Memory
DDR3 Double Data Rate Type 3
DDR4 Double Data Rate 4
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DSL Digital Subscriber Line
DVD+RW Digital Versatile Disk Rewritable
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
GIF Graphics Interchange Format
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface
HTML Hyper-Text Markup Language
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol
HTTPS HyperText Transport Protocol Secure
ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol
IP Internet Protocol
POP3 Post Office Protocol
RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks
RDBMS Relational Database Management System
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
VoIP Voice Over Internet Protocol
VPN Virtual Private Network
WAN Wide Area Network
WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
WWW World Wide Web
Introduction
Background and Introduction to the Internet
What is the Internet?
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion devices worldwide. It is a network of
networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government
networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical
networking technologies.

Sculpture of a man with an "@" symbol head and wings, riding on a bike with @ wheels.

The Internet Messenger by Buky Schwartz in Holon.

The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-
linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure
to support email, and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing and telephony.

The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States government
in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks. This work,
combined with efforts in the United Kingdom and France, led to the primary precursor network,
the ARPANET, in the United States. The interconnection of regional academic networks in the
1980s marks the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet. From the early 1990s, the
network experienced sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and
mobile computers were connected to it.

The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as
private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the
development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. Though the
Internet has been widely used by academia since the 1980s, the commercialization of what was
by the 1990s an international network resulted in its popularization and incorporation into
virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2014, 38 percent of the world’s human
population has used the services of the Internet within the past year–over 100 times more people
than were using it in 1995. Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s to early
2000s and from the late 1990s to present in the developing world.
Historical Background
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system where
documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs, such as
https://www.example.com/), which may be interlinked by hypertext, and are accessible over the
Internet.The resources of the WWW are transferred via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
and may be accessed by users by a software application called a web browser and are published
by a software application called a web server.

English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web
browser in 1990 while employed at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.[ The browser was released
outside CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and then to the
general public in August 1991. The World Wide Web has been central to the development of the
Information Age and is the primary tool billions of people use to interact on the Internet

Web resources may be any type of downloaded media, but web pages are hypertext media that
have been formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).Such formatting allows for
embedded hyperlinks that contain URLs and permit users to navigate to other web resources. In
addition to text, web pages may contain references to images, video, audio, and software
components which are displayed in the user's web browser as coherent pages of multimedia
content.
Multiple web resources with a common theme, a common domain name, or both, make up a
website. Websites are stored in computers that are running a program called a web server that
responds to requests made over the Internet from web browsers running on a user's computer.
Website content can be largely provided by a publisher, or interactively where users contribute
content or the content depends upon the users or their actions. Websites may be provided for a
myriad of informative, entertainment, commercial, governmental, or non-governmental reasons.

Research Methodology
Whereas reading and conducting research on the subject theme, a variety of methods and
procedure of the research is hired. Historical, analytical, comparative and qualitative
approaches is adopted while analyzing the problem. Historical and comparative
approaches have proved beneficial while making recommendations, conclusions and future
course of action.
Literature Review
Internet technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and offers new possibilities for
researching, particularly when working with hard to reach groups who may benefit from a move
away from more traditional methodologies. The research has been informed by various
methodologies, and is flexible in its application and nature, varying from an analysis of the
content of web pages (Jones, Zahlm and Huws 2001), to complex discourse analytic techniques
of ‘electronic conversations’, (Denzin, 1999). One of the most common uses of the Internet as a
research tool has focused on the use of online questionnaires, via web page delivery or e-mail,
and has proved useful in providing novel insights into research questions (see for example
Coomber’s ,1997 investigations of drug dealers) as have on-line focus groups, and real-time
interviews (O’Connor and Madge, 2000). Other qualitative research methods which can be
adapted for Internet research are those based on observations. Techniques of participant
observation are particularly amenable to Internet research with listservs (online discussion
forums where messages are posted asynchronously, e.g. Sharf, 1997). Mann and Stewart (2000)
cite various advantages of such a methodology, most notably the benefit of being able to ‘lurk’
effectively online. ‘Lurking’ can take place without detection if non-participant, covert
observation is required, and without the various barriers associated with age, gender and race if
overt participant observation is the goal. 5 The increasing use of online methodologies raises
some ethical issues which are unique to such research in addition to more ‘traditional’ ethical
concerns. The degree of concern will vary depending on the method of research employed.
While the participants of online questionnaire based research have the choice whether to
complete the survey, the observation of natural conversations in real-time chat rooms and on
listservs by ‘lurking’ do have serious ethical considerations associated with them regarding
invasion of privacy. The focus of this paper will be to examine ethical issues that need to be
considered when researching in an online forum. It will firstly discuss concerns around privacy
and confidentiality, and cite the work of Sharf (1999) who has proposed a set of research
guidelines which go some way to addressing many of the questions raised in the discussions of
ethics. The final sections will focus on power issues surrounding Internet use and discuss new
power differentials, which may emerge in on-line forums. Throughout the paper reflections will
be made on a piece of work recently completed by the authors using the arena of on-line
discussion groups whose membership comprises of people considered to be on the autistic
spectrum as a source of research. Recent papers have highlighted the increasing use of Internet
technologies by autistic people (e.g. Dekker, 2000; Blume 1997), as both a forum for self-
advocacy movements, and a ‘safe’ way of meeting other members of the ‘autistic community’.
Dekker (2000, p.1) has claimed “the internet is for many high functioning autistics what sign
language is for the deaf”. The Internet is therefore considered to be a 6 particularly useful tool in
establishing contact with ‘autistic groups’, and ensuring that their opinions are reflected in the
current research
Section I.
Global number of internet users 2005-2019
In 2019, the number of internet users worldwide was 4.13 billion, up from 3.92 billion in the
previous year.

Easier access to computers, the modernization of countries around the world and an increased
utilization of smartphones has given people the opportunity to use the internet more frequently
and with more convenience. However, internet penetration often pertains to the current state of
development regarding communications networks. As of December 2017, there were
approximately 772 million total internet users in China and 312 million total internet users in the
United States. However, broadband internet usage is not equally present in many countries and
due to infrastructure reasons, developing online markets rely strongly on mobile connections.
Subsequently, global mobile data traffic is set to surpass 77 exabytes per month in 2022, up from
11.5 exabytes per month as of 2017.

Social networking is one of the most popular online activities and Facebook is the most popular
online network based on active usage. As of the third quarter of 2018, there were over 2.2 billion
monthly active Facebook users, accounting for almost half of internet users worldwide.
Connecting with family and friends, expressing opinions, entertainment and online shopping are
amongst the most popular reasons for internet usage.
Source: Number of internet users worldwide from 2009 to 2019, by region

Broadband access
This chart shows the number of fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.

This refers to fixed subscriptions to high-speed access to the public Internet (a TCP/IP
connection), at downstream speeds equal to, or greater than, 256 kbit/s.

Means of connection include cable modem, DSL, fiber-to-the-home, other fixed (wired)-
broadband subscriptions, satellite broadband and terrestrial fixed wireless broadband. Excluded
are subscriptions via mobile-cellular networks.
Mobile phone use
A truly disruptive technological development has been the rise of mobile phones. The interactive
visualization shows the latest global data.

By changing to the chart view you can see that globally we only saw a very slow rise until the
late 1990s and then a dramatically faster increase in mobile device subscriptions since the
beginning of the 21st century
The rise of social media

Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, has 2.4 billion users. Other social
media platforms including Youtube and Whatsapp also have more than one billion users each.

These numbers are huge – there are 7.7 billion people in the world, with 3.5 billion of us online.
This means social media platforms are used by one-in-three people in the world, and more than
two-thirds of all internet users.

Social media has changed the world. The rapid and vast adoption of these technologies is
changing how we find partners, how we access information from the news, and how we organize
to demand political change.
Who uses social media? When did the rise of social media start and what are the largest sites
today? Here we answer these and other key questions to understand social media use around the
world.

We begin with an outline of key trends and conclude with a perspective on the rate of adoption
of social media relative to other modern communication technologies.

Social media started in the early 2000s

The first social media site to reach a million monthly active users was MySpace – it achieved
this milestone around 2004. This is arguably the beginning of social media as we know it.9

In the interactive chart we plot monthly active users, by platform, since 2004. You can use the
slider to focus on particular years, and you can click the ‘+ Add’ option to change series and
track the evolution of other social media platforms.

This chart shows that there are some large social media sites that have been around for ten or
more years, such as Facebook, YouTube and Reddit; but other large sites are much newer.

TikTok, for example, launched in September 2016 and by mid-2018 it had already reached half a
billion users. To put this in perspective: TikTok gained on average about 20 million new users
per month over this period.

The data also shows rapid changes in the opposite direction. Once-dominant platforms have
disappeared. In 2008, Hi5, MySpace and Friendster were close competitors to Facebook, yet by
2012 they had virtually no share of the market. The case of MySpace is remarkable considering
that in 2006 it temporarily surpassed Google as the most visited website in the US.

Most of the social media platforms that survived the last decade have shifted significantly in
what they offer users. Twitter, for example, didn’t allow users to upload videos or images in the
beginning. Since 2011 this is possible and today more than 50% of the content viewed on Twitter
includes images and videos.

Facebook has dominated the social media market for a decade, but five
other platforms also have more than half a billion users each

With 2.3 billion users, Facebook is the most popular social media platform today. YouTube,
Instagram and WeChat follow, with more than a billion users. Tumblr and TikTok come next,
with over half a billion users.

The bar chart here shows a ranking of the top social media platforms, year by year. You can
drag the slider in this chart to see the ranking for other years.
Section II
Analysis,
Power and the Internet

Related to ethics are power issues in Internet research, which need important consideration.
Several discussions have taken place concerning power issues in Internet research. Mann and
Stewart (2000) discuss the loss of social cues online, which may inform power relations in face
to face situations, and Dubrovsky et al (1991) further cite evidence that discussion groups online
tend to be less dominated by those with high status. The nature of online discussion groups
means that they can consist of a wide range of people offering several discourses surrounding a
topic. Discourses that can be accessed range from ‘expert’/professional knowledge, to
experiences of family members and those directly affected. Online discussion groups may
therefore provide an alternative pool of language resources from which to draw identities.
Bowker (1999) suggests that these ‘linguistic opportunities’ offered within online environments
enable people with disabilities to ‘reconstruct more empowering identities’, as more discursive
themes surrounding the self are made available. The Internet therefore seems to be an ideal
research tool for conducting unbiased research. However, other researchers disagree, arguing that
virtual spaces remain constrained by power exchanges implicit in class, race, and gender, and by
default can not be equally friendly environments for everyone due to their domination by white,
middle class, Western men (Kramarae, 1995). Baym (1995) and Spears and Lea (1992) suggest
that the awareness of such social cues do remain active online, and in addition to these, there are
new social processes of domination and marginalisation 18 with which qualitative researchers
may have to contend. For example, the organisation reflected in the domain name can lead to
power differentials, and some closed chat rooms insist that new comers are identified as such.
Important issues also surround the language in which most interactions on the Internet is
conducted in. English is not necessarily the first language of many users, and issues surrounding
interactions in second languages and the cultural implications of this should be considered, in
addition to questions surrounding how neutral, particularly gender-neutral language is. Many
researchers would contend that language is never gender-neutral (for example Burr, 1995), and is
always constructing the social world (Curt, 1994). New power differentials also begin to emerge
concerning the ‘usability’ of websites and chat rooms. In synchronous chat rooms (where the
reply is immediate), those who have ‘voice’ are those who can type the quickest to make their
expressions ‘heard’, (Mann and Stewart, 2000). Hence we observe a power shift towards those
with proficient typing skills. This is less true for asynchronous discussion lists where both the
reading of a message and the posting of a reply may be delayed, giving those with less typing
proficiency equal opportunities to have their ‘voice heard’. In addition to discussing power
differentials in a specific ‘virtual’ environment, wider issues remain regarding the type of
research methodology employed, notably questions surrounding participatory and emancipatory
research,the current research seeks to challenge the status of ‘expert’ in issues surrounding
autism in line with several group ethos’ which firmly positions people 19 with autism as the
‘experts’ and not the professionals who have the power to diagnose them ‘officially’. Participants
in the research were therefore seen more as collaborators in the research process, rather than
‘subjects’ of investigation, (Duckett and Pratt, 2001). Once the potentially empowering nature of
the research was highlighted with the focus on self-advocacy, and the rejection of the study of
groups as an ‘oddity’, the researchers were welcomed into the groups.

Section III
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusions
Our findings this year reflect students who are serious about the work of being students and who
continue to leverage personal and campus technology for their academic success. Personal
technologies remain reliably prevalent; other technologies with potential impact to enhance
student learning are emerging among our students. Meanwhile, campus technology infrastructure
continues to influence students' overall tech experiences. This year we also determined that
student demographics play an important role in the types of technology that are viewed as critical
to their success as well as to their experiences of technology. We are also optimistic that this
year's report can foster important dialogues among campus stakeholders regarding technology,
diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as accessibility. Although reporting that "change is
occurring" while some things "remain the same" doesn't constitute a game-changing
proclamation, we are confident this report provides strong insights into why these trends are
occurring, as well as actionable recommendations for institutional stakeholders.
The more evidence that can be collected to understand students' technological preferences for
and relations to technology, the better equipped faculty and IT organizations will be to address
current needs and anticipate future student needs. In 2018, students continue to see technology as
essential to their academic success. What is crucial now is identifying how best to leverage it for
student success, based on institutional goals, costs, pedagogical approaches, and evidence of
impact. This report supports these conversations by providing empirical evidence for addressing
these goals rather than relying on anecdotal-based assumptions about students and technology or
single studies that confirm our preconceived biases. We hope that this report will serve as the
starting point of those conversations.
Recommendations
Continue providing students with access to the basic technologies that are most important
to their academic success. The maintenance of desktop computer labs, laptop and tablet rental
programs, and negotiated discounts for personal academic devices enable nearly all students to
have access to the technologies they need to succeed. Avoid the creation of a new digital divide
by making bleeding-edge technologies such as AR and VR headsets and 3D printers and
scanners equally and publicly available to all students in venues such as makerspaces and
libraries.
Eliminate classroom bans of student devices important to their success Although devices
that can connect to the internet have the potential to distract students during class, many
students—especially women, students of color, students with disabilities, first-generation
students, students who are independent (with or without dependents of their own), and students
from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds—find these devices significantly more
important to their academic success than do their counterparts. Classroom device bans have the
potential to indiscriminately undermine students who may disproportionately rely on them,
creating unnecessary (and possibly illegal) obstacles for those who may need them the most.
Increase the reach and quality of campus Wi-Fi networks. Students should have experiences
with their institutional Wi-Fi similar to what they have in public places and with their home
networks. Wi-Fi connectivity across all areas of campus should be considered the industry
standard for higher education institutions. Without these improvements, campus IT departments
will continue to hear students' complaints and concerns about connectivity while reporting
poorer technology experiences at their institution. Campus IT should improve IoT connections to
campus networks and proactively communicate to students, faculty, and staff how increased
network security can affect their login experiences.
Expand student awareness of the benefits, expectations, and demands of blended learning
environments Students should receive consistent and clear information from multiple campus
sources so that they can make well-informed decisions about the learning environments that are
best suited to their own learning and lives. Expose students to blended learning early in their
college careers and provide faculty who lack blended learning experience with professional
development and opportunities to teach in these environments.
Ensure that commuter students have the tools and information they need to take advantage
of blended and online learning and leverage their institution's technology to meet their
academic needs. Off-campus students should be similarly informed of the benefits, expectations,
and demands of blended or online learning environments. Ensuring quality networks across all
areas of campus will also benefit commuter students who have poor, fair, or no internet
connectivity at home. Institutions can also look to partner with community resources, such as
public libraries in student communities, to facilitate commuter students' access to reliable Wi-Fi
networks.
Build collaborative partnerships across campus to increase awareness and better meet the
needs of students with disabilities who require assistive/adaptive technologies. Many
students with disabilities choose not to disclose their disabilities for fear of being stigmatized.
Fostering an inclusive mind-set and using language that communicates "accessibility" instead of
"disability" in resources and course materials is key to opening a productive dialogue with
students so that they feel comfortable requesting the services they need to be successful. Work
proactively with disability services and support the adoption of universal design for learning
principles for tech across campus.
Increase the use of student success tools. Student success tools can contribute to students'
academic performance. However, fewer students used student success tools that aided in
academic performance than online tools that aided them in conducting the business of being
students. The benefits of these tools should be communicated early to students in orientation,
during advising meetings, or by advertising these tools via social media or on institutional
websites. In particular, instructors and institutions should be aware of, have buy-in, use, and
consistently communicate the benefits of these tools to their students to increase their use

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