 In this lecture, we are going to look at an introduction to cyber society, cyber culture and cyber space, which are three very closely knit topics. The topics that we are going to cover in this lecture include the objectives, a brief a crisp introduction to cyber society, culture, components of culture, the culture of computing, the concept of cyberspace, cyberspace communities, as well as the effect of cyber culture on the society. The main objectives of this lecture include that we are going to see that you know how by looking into these concepts, a positive online environment of internet users and a healthy cyber culture from the internet community, why it is important, how it can be created. The second objective of this lecture is a recognition of the power of the internet to benefit ourselves as well as the community at large. And the third objective is that we want to reflect on how to become a responsible user of social networking sites and we want to you know manifest a commitment towards building a healthy cyber culture. Let's look at what a cyber society is. Well, before visiting cyber society, let's look at the essence of what a society is. A society which is formed by us humans consists of the interconnections between humans, their surrounding, their environment, our connection with one another, our living style, our culture. Now with the advent of internet, nothing I believe has you know transformed humans the way this advent of internet has. No other technology has possibly brought about a global change the way internet did. And now with the birth of internet, it brought about you know a virtual society which is you know a virtual manifestation of the society that we have otherwise. And that is called a cyber society. A cyber society most specifically is defined as the construction, maintenance and facilitation of community in electronic networks and computer mediated communication. Now what is a cyber society that just how in a real life we as individuals, as humans have connections one another in site and in order to live our day to day life, we carry out businesses, we interact with others, we have certain sources of entertainment. Similarly, in a virtual way in a cyber society, we carry out businesses, we interact with others, we have sources of entertainment and so on. A fundamental difference between a regular society and a cyber society is that a regular society is bounded by a region or bounded by certain geographical limits. Whereas a cyber society is global, it is connecting us to everywhere across the globe. As ordinary societies are marked by a certain culture, which of which we are living in boredom and similarly a cyber society, which is a virtual society also is defined by its own unique culture. Now what is a cyber culture? Well, cyber culture is that just how in a regular society there is a certain language we use, there is a certain way in which we interact with each other, there is a certain etiquette we follow, there is a certain decorum we follow, there is a certain code of conduct of business. Similarly, the cyberspace, it has its own etiquette, it has its own language, it has its own means of carrying out business and this overall constitutes the cyber culture. As I said earlier, you know, like every culture in real life, the cyber culture has its own language and it is, you know, and what that language is that it actually converts our human written language or our human spoken language into machine language, which is understandable by computers in general. Furthermore, especially, you know, the cyber culture in contrast to the actual societal culture, it allows for, you know, a written text communication, it allows for oral communication, which can be done through a number of means, a number of means and medium. Let's now look at the various components of cyber culture, which define the cyber society. Those components include internet, it includes various websites which we browse, it includes email, it includes blog, it includes online chatting, it includes e-commerce and it includes various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on. Now we'll briefly look at what these components are. Internet we all know is a network formed by the cooperative interconnection of a large number of computer networks. Nobody really owns the internet, there is no central administration to the internet. Main goal of the internet is to connect several computers together for the exchange of messages and for sharing information. And internet, as I told you earlier, which has revolutionised the human race is a community of basically all people and it is a collection of all resources. The second component of cyber culture, which comes under the umbrella of internet is having a website. A website technically defined is a location connected to the internet that maintains one or more web pages, web pages are the building blocks of the website. We can access the website and access the web pages and access any information, any content whether that may be technical content, entertainment content is provided on the website and the enclosed web pages. The third component which we're all at some level or the other familiar with is an email, electronic email which allows people sitting at the two opposite ends of the word to reliably communicate with each other. The fourth component what we can say is a blog. A blog is a discussion or an informational site published on the web and it consists of discrete entries. Then the next component which each one of us are now on our daily base using is the online chatting. You know whether it is done through social networks, whether it is done through text messaging, online chatting is a very, very essential feature of the cyber culture which is defining the cyber society. Then further more moving on how in a regular society, societies are marked and defined by the businesses that we carry out. Similarly, a very important component of cyber culture is e-commerce where you know we're doing online shopping where we have online marketplaces, we have a business to business buying and selling, we may even have business to consumer buying and selling. Then you know they can be online newsletters for marketing perspectives. Lastly, but I would say most importantly the cyber culture these days is characterized by social networks which most of us are at you know one or the other. We are making use of one or the other social network whether that is for staying connected with our loved ones through you know sharing messages, sharing our daily activities, sharing our photos, videos or whether it is for professional purposes such as a use of website like LinkedIn whether it is you know so it's use of these social networks an example which could be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. This is you know a very, very important aspect or component of the cyber culture. The third very closely connected component of cyber culture and cyber society is the cyberspace. A cyberspace is a space that is created through the union of electronic communication networks such as the internet which enables computer facilitated communication between any number of people who may be geographically dispersed around the globe. Cyberspace is a public space where individuals can meet, exchange, ideate, share information, provide support social support and carry out business. Now if I contrast cyberspace with an actual physical space before the advent of internet it is how let's say in a corner gathering or in a meeting where several individuals could meet, share ideas, carry out discussions so a cyberspace is actually a virtual version of that physical space of those physical meetings that people would have. You know they can include political discussions, they can include various forms of entertainment, they could include you know at times these gathering of families and very close ones, a reunion of sort. Carrying on with you know the essence or the concept of cyberspace we know that human interaction does not require physical connection to communicate but it is rather characterised by the interconnection of millions of people throughout the world to chat rooms, emails, Facebook. Here we see the various mediums which help us in creating that cyberspace. Facebook for instance, Twitter for instance, Skype for instance, Google for instance are just some of the mediums through which you know cyberspace exists and people are making use of it. Moving on to cyberspace communities we see that due to worldwide use of computer networks people are now able to get together and form cyber communities that can exchange messages easily through the cyberspace. Physical meeting has been reduced to the introduction of cyber culture and cyber meetings. Moving on to the effects of the cyber culture on our society. We see that you know cyber culture has brought a tremendous impact, a great impact on human individual's life. In education the style of teaching and learning has changed. Student-teacher interaction has specially changed. This came, became even more prominent during the times of COVID-19 when even regular universities, regular schools, regular colleges shifted to the cyberspace, had to adopt the cyber culture in order to teach and impart. Further you know as as far as due to this introduction of cyber culture a lot of business such as you know carrying out meetings, carrying out conferences has now very easily moved into the cyberspace and that is bringing about an advantage of reducing time of saving resources of all kinds. Moving on to other effects and impacts of cyber culture. We see that cyber culture has reduced the gap between groups and individuals which may be separated from one another for various reasons. For instance if a certain individual is carrying out higher education in a far off country that particular individual is very easily able to stay connected to family at home whether that person wants to stay connected to their parents or to their peers and so on. Further however like like all inventions when there are positives and good sides there is also a downside. The downside of this prevalence of cyber culture is that face to face communication human to human bond, human to human interaction has greatly suffered. It is not a scene that we do not see on our daily lives that we have individuals sitting in the same room or family members living in the same house however you know instead of communicating with one another at a personal level they are making use of cyberspace they are making use of social networks to communicate with each other. Nevertheless as I said with all inventions while there are advantages there are disadvantages while these disadvantages exist the advantages are humongous not just the fact that this cyber culture has reduced distances this cyber culture has made business very easy has made education very easy has made staying connected with a large number of people very very easy.