Effect Of Technology On Society

This essay is a self reflective assignment; the main objective of this assignment is to rethink the issues of computer technology. In the first part, the benefits of the computer technology on the society will be introduced. The second part will be a conflict of the first part supported by themes from the text (The End of The Work), and the reading kit which contains different articles written by different authors. The conclusion will be based on my own opinion from what I wrote.

Ever since the dawn of civilization, knowledge has been power. If you knew how to count, you could understand more than others. This still applies today. If you know more than another, you will have more power. Computers in the modern world are the main source of knowledge. From a simple calculator to the most powerful supercomputer, computers give man an edge over his/her challenger.

The computer has the following capabilities.

1. Simultaneous finishing of different jobs.

2. Ability to make decision.

3. Work without fatigue.

4. Conclusion of complex jobs with great speed.

5. Remote control.

6. Ability to work in inaccessible areas.

7. More effective operation of human efforts, thus reducing cost of production.

8. Precision and accuracy in results.

9. Very large memory condition to store and to recover data.

Nowadays computers have become a necessary part of almost any professional field, there is hardly any human activity which is not affected by the computer in some way or another; it affects health, education, industrial management and production, communication or travel ...etc. Computers are in every house, they became a demand for a daily life, in which we cannot get a job done without it.

Computers have entered right into the classroom. If you use a calculator, that is a computer. Also programs like Excel (or other graphing programs) can allow you to graph certain functions that would be hard to do by hand.

Computer technology became more effective with internet. The internet is changing human society, just as railways, cars and telephones changed it before, but internet is much quicker, it only takes few seconds to send an email while it takes at least few days to send a mail. Internet has caused a revolution in the society, allowing people from all over the world to communicate and express their ideas and feelings. Internet can allow people to gain positions and gain friends that they would never otherwise have the chance to in real life. The most powerful influence of the Internet is on information flow, all kinds of information can be digitized and passed on to millions of people in a few seconds. Everything from news to music, commercial proposals to protesters meeting plans. Most of that information took hours or even days to be transmitted before, especially if there were many recipients. Internet is used in many different aspects, as an example, shopping online, working from home, freedom of speech, chatting, downloading music, searching online, studying online, ...etc.

Although computer and internet provide great benefits to the society, it also presents a bad face that is effectively destroying the society.

Jeremy Rifkin in his book "The End of The Work" talks about how the worldwide unemployment is now at the highest level since the great depression of the 1930s. The number of people unemployed is increasing sharply, as millions of new applicants into the labor force find themselves victims of an extraordinary high-technology revolution. Complicated computers, robotics, telecommunications, and other cutting-edge technologies are fast replacing human beings in nearly every sector and industry, from manufacturing, retail, and financial services, to transportation, agriculture, and government.

The world, says Rifkin, is fast polarizing into two potentially irreconcilable forces: on one side, an information elite that controls and manages the high-tech global economy; and on the other, the growing numbers of permanently displaced workers, who have few prospects and little hope for meaningful employment in an increasingly automated world.

Armstrong, Allison and Charles Casement