Is the Internet ruining the idea of a culture?

The Deborah Wheeler article from 2001 entitled,New Technologies; Old Culture:
A look at Women, Gender, and the Internet in Kuwait created an interesting
perspective on the Internet based on the culture in Kuwait. A personal
testimony of Layla discussed that she does not think that women in Kuwait will
use the Internet for their own educational benefit such as for serious research.
When considering the children in Kuwait Layla thinks that the Internet will turn children away from reading books, which will end up inhibiting their education. The
Internet provides more freedom for women in Kuwait by increasing employment
opportunities, allowing them to participate in a chatroom, and talk with those
from the opposite sex.

A concern that Layla also had about children and using the Internet is that she thought that it would persuade them to adopt the Western lifestyle and not value the Kuwait culture. Deborah Wheeler also wrote another article entitledThe Internet and Youth Subculture in Kuwaitwhich also addresses concerns of the Internet ruining social ties between individuals, and it also reduces participation in social rituals in Kuwait because people want to surf the web instead.

It is interesting to me that these thoughts never crossed my mind when I think about the Internet in the Western culture. We use it for social media, we use it to communicate with friends and family, we use it for school a lot also. It just goes to show that what works for one culture technology wise may not be the best for all cultures, and if society pushes all new technology on various types of cultures they may end up ruining what actually makes a culture a culture. Our education values the internet and we typically have to depend on technology to get assignments completed, but that is not the case in Kuwait. Their education is not centered around the use of technology .We need to be sensitive to how technology, such as the Internet could alter a culture for the worst.

For more information please check out the rest of the article at the following link.
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue2/wheeler.html