People use the internet in many ways. While the main reasons are information, communication, and entertainment, the more specific ones are the following:
Communication
People use the internet for communication. Whether it’s sending or receiving an email or e-card, sending private, group or public messages on social media, or doing a chat on messenger apps, there’s no doubt that the internet presents a free opportunity for people to connect with anyone from anywhere in the globe instantly.
Real Estate
The internet is a hit in real estate. Whether you are looking to sell, buy, or rent properties, you can just publish or search online for real property ads, which make the process easier and less costly. There is no need to spend time and gasoline driving to each property location because you can visit a place virtually with Google maps.
Services
Need a plumber fast? How about an electrician? And cleaning services? The internet is full of information that makes it easier for you to find the kind of services that you are looking for. Gone are the days when you have to flip through the yellow pages to look for an accountant or lawyer and then the only information that you can find are the names and the phone numbers. With the internet, not only can you learn more about these companies’ contact information, you can even read reviews and see what other people can say about the kind of service that they had received from these companies.
Shopping
Online business is a booming business. The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced in November 2014 that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2014 alone, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $78.1 billion. This is an increase of 4.0 percent from the second quarter of 2014. In addition, total retail sales for the third quarter of 2014 were estimated at $1,185.1 billion, an increase of 0.9 percent from the second quarter of 2014. These figures come as no surprise because there is definitely no turning back after people learned that you could visit many stores and scour the available inventories in less time and hassle.
Entertainment
Whether it is streaming movies, listening to music, watching videos, the internet is full of materials that could entertain us. Sometimes, just reading blogs and online books are enough to leisurely spend the time away.
Job-hunting
Most companies now publish their job openings on their websites. In addition to that, many websites cater to connecting employers and job-hunters on their website. Employers can submit their job openings, requirements, and salary offers, while the job hunters can often create and submit resumes on the website. Most of the jobs are sorted according to categories (like accounting, administrative, engineering, and sales), location (examples are North East public sector jobs, by state, or by city) and levels (entry-level, supervisory, managerial, or executive).
Information
This is probably the catchall category for the rest of the things that people do when they use the internet. Whether they are doing research, reading the news, checking out the basketball scores, or learning what their friends shared online, the internet is a very useful tool to learn a lot of information – good or bad.
Do you know some of the reasons why people use the internet? Care to share them in the comments section below?
