Today, people can get almost anything online. There’s little doubt the Internet has changed U.S. society, and many people would say the world’s society. Things that would have taken hours of leg work to do now take minutes. For example, you can research a destination, compare prices for a trip, book your travel arrangements, and print your boarding pass for the plane all from your home computer. If you know where you want to go, the process takes less than half an hour to complete. Forms that auto-fill with your information further reduce the time it takes.
People are even buying car insurance online. In the past, car insurance agents would schedule a meeting with a person to go over the benefits of signing with a particular company. Agents had to meet with clients to sign paperwork. Now a person can get everything from quotes to actual policies by using the Web. Electronic signatures have replaced physical ones.
Businesses, organizations, and people all use the Internet for marketing. President Obama took advantage of Facebook and other social networking sites to connect with a new generation of voters who have never known life without the Internet. Through his use of the Web, people felt a connection to the candidate. Research has yet to determine how large a role the Internet played in Obama winning the presidential election.
It would be difficult for a person to find an area of society the Internet hasn’t affecfted. Society now expects to have vast amounts of information available in a split second. Friends can find one another and stay connected through social networking sites, and single people can look for love online. With the way the Internet has affected every society, the world is in fact getting smaller. People who live in India can meet people who live in Indonesia, and companies can have workers all across the globe.