The Social Impact of Computing.
Social media is a huge part of our society now, with the increasing use of websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram people are sharing more and more of their daily life over the internet. On the surface, social media has a positive effect on society, allowing for an easier way to communicate with more people than ever before. This is the case for many people, sites like Facebook allowing them to keep in touch with family and friends that could be on the opposite side of the world. Not only does it allow individuals to contact each other and share there experiences it also allows businesses, large and small, to promote themselves freely, contact and connect with their target audience / customers. Social media also provides a platform for news services, with up to 50% of young adults and 38% of US adults getting their news from online websites.
It has become apparent that social networking has become a huge part of daily life. So much so that experts say it may not be as social as once thought. Teenagers between the ages of 12-17 say they use text messages and other forms of internet messaging (messenger, snapchat etc.) more than any other form of communication, including talking. It appears that social media may be having a negative effect on communication skills of developing children and teenagers. Since there is seemingly no need for most teenagers to communicate in any other way than social media they lack social skills which could lead to them feeling increasingly isolated and lonely over time. Not only does a lack of social skills lead to self isolation but it can also harm them in the business world, not having social skills for a job interview or being able to express yourself in a presentable way can lead to less than favourable future prospects in the working environment and other areas of life such as relationships.
Social media has some serious mental health effects as well. While it can motivate people to support charities, pursue goals in order to share them with the world and influence politics, it can also be damaging to mental health, especially young people.
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter allow you to share everything you want to share about your life. People who see your feed are seeing a filtered version of your life, however it may not occur to them that what is being shown to them is a filter. This can lead to young people comparing their lives with others on social media, notably celebrities and public figures, causing overwhelming feelings of low self-esteem and anxiety in young people.
A study conducted by Dr Paula Durlofsky shows a correlation between social media use and depression and a UK states that "60% (of social media users) reported feeling inadequate and 60& reported feelings of jealousy".
It has become apparent that social networking has become a huge part of daily life. So much so that experts say it may not be as social as once thought. Teenagers between the ages of 12-17 say they use text messages and other forms of internet messaging (messenger, snapchat etc.) more than any other form of communication, including talking. It appears that social media may be having a negative effect on communication skills of developing children and teenagers. Since there is seemingly no need for most teenagers to communicate in any other way than social media they lack social skills which could lead to them feeling increasingly isolated and lonely over time. Not only does a lack of social skills lead to self isolation but it can also harm them in the business world, not having social skills for a job interview or being able to express yourself in a presentable way can lead to less than favourable future prospects in the working environment and other areas of life such as relationships.
Social media has some serious mental health effects as well. While it can motivate people to support charities, pursue goals in order to share them with the world and influence politics, it can also be damaging to mental health, especially young people.
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter allow you to share everything you want to share about your life. People who see your feed are seeing a filtered version of your life, however it may not occur to them that what is being shown to them is a filter. This can lead to young people comparing their lives with others on social media, notably celebrities and public figures, causing overwhelming feelings of low self-esteem and anxiety in young people.
A study conducted by Dr Paula Durlofsky shows a correlation between social media use and depression and a UK states that "60% (of social media users) reported feeling inadequate and 60& reported feelings of jealousy".
Employment and Business Impacts of IT.
Computing is an important part of businesses nowadays, with businesses and organisations using computers for almost everything. As a consequence more people are deciding to work from home since most of the hardware and software needed to complete their jobs (Microsoft Office, Excel and Word etc). Some businesses are choosing to save costs by investing in smaller offices and employing more people to work from home, this has benefits since employees are more efficient when working from home since there is no need for any travel time to and from work, they can work whenever they want and, for the right people, can reduce stress and therefore make them more productive.
The obvious downside to working at home is the lack of social interaction and increased isolation that may occur due to not being surrounded by colleagues. It can also make working on group projects much harder since you would have to use emails or messaging services to exchange files rather than a network or server. Distractions are also an area of concern when working from home, since there is no administration or management to keep employees focused on work thus why working from home is only applicable to certain types of people.
It can also make it a lot harder for people to separate work from home and leisure time. This can lead to the feeling of permanently being at work and therefore becoming more stressed.
Developments in IT such as self service checkouts and kiosks have made the way we buy and sell goods more efficient than before but it has also seen a reduction in retail jobs, such as those of customer service workers in supermarkets and fast food restaurants.
As shown in the graph above, there has been a significant decline in service jobs and workers where automation has been implemented. In countries such as the UK and US it is clear that automation and other developments are causing a decline in low skilled jobs since the Philippines, a place that has been relatively untouched by automation and other technological developments in computing, has seen an increase in the number of low skilled / service jobs.
For businesses it is cheaper to invest in a computing technology such as a self service machine and cut labouring costs than to hire more staff.
While this has caused a decline in a certain area of jobs, it has also created new markets and opportunities. There still needs to be people who understand how these machines work and how to fix them if they ever fail, so mechanics and IT staff are in high demand due to the increasing computing use in businesses. Training people to use the machines is quickly becoming a market that is also in high demand due to the need for employees and customers to understand how these machines work. Not to mention the work that needs to be undertaken to design and create said automated machines.
The obvious downside to working at home is the lack of social interaction and increased isolation that may occur due to not being surrounded by colleagues. It can also make working on group projects much harder since you would have to use emails or messaging services to exchange files rather than a network or server. Distractions are also an area of concern when working from home, since there is no administration or management to keep employees focused on work thus why working from home is only applicable to certain types of people.
It can also make it a lot harder for people to separate work from home and leisure time. This can lead to the feeling of permanently being at work and therefore becoming more stressed.
Developments in IT such as self service checkouts and kiosks have made the way we buy and sell goods more efficient than before but it has also seen a reduction in retail jobs, such as those of customer service workers in supermarkets and fast food restaurants.
As shown in the graph above, there has been a significant decline in service jobs and workers where automation has been implemented. In countries such as the UK and US it is clear that automation and other developments are causing a decline in low skilled jobs since the Philippines, a place that has been relatively untouched by automation and other technological developments in computing, has seen an increase in the number of low skilled / service jobs.
For businesses it is cheaper to invest in a computing technology such as a self service machine and cut labouring costs than to hire more staff.
While this has caused a decline in a certain area of jobs, it has also created new markets and opportunities. There still needs to be people who understand how these machines work and how to fix them if they ever fail, so mechanics and IT staff are in high demand due to the increasing computing use in businesses. Training people to use the machines is quickly becoming a market that is also in high demand due to the need for employees and customers to understand how these machines work. Not to mention the work that needs to be undertaken to design and create said automated machines.
Environmental Impacts.
The more computers there are, the more electricity is used. That much is obvious, what isn't so obvious is that that electricity comes mainly from fossil fuels. In fact in the UK fossil fuels make up 54% of the electricity used. This in turn means more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is the biggest contributor to the "greenhouse" effect, which involves the suns radiation getting into the atmosphere and trapped instead of bouncing out due to the collection of gases. Overall this causes global warming and can cause extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. While computers and computing devices are far from the main cause of burning fossil fuels, efforts can still be made to make them cleaner and more efficient at consuming energy.
GPU (graphics processing units) are increasing their power usage whereas most new CPU (control processing units) are making steps to make their units get more performance per kilowatt. However, even though companies that produce components for computing devices are trying to develop more environmentally friendly products, they cannot do so at the cost of efficiency or power. A lot of new developments has seen phones with more battery life, meaning it needs less time to charge and less charging overall so less electricity used.
Electronic waste is also a problem, computing hardware develops so fast and a lot of people just throw away their old computers / pieces of hardware, an estimated 60% of which ends up in landfills. This e-waste contain toxic chemicals like arsenic and lead that are used when producing the product. And due to the rapid advancement in hardware, there is no reason for companies to take back the recycled e-waste since they have other methods to create faster and more efficient hardware. Recycling e-waste fixes the problem of landfills being pilled up with electronics but up to 30% of recycled e-waste is lost in the recycling process. A lot of first world countries send their e-waste overseas, where it is burned and stripped for by kids and scavengers in junkyards. This is terribly toxic for the workers / children because it exposes them to the previously mentioned harmful chemicals and toxins. At least 50% of Africa's e-waste comes from other countries.
Not only are we harming the environment by throwing away old laptops and phones, but we could be putting them to better uses. An example of this is the E-Waste Africa project, it aims to send old phones, laptops and other computing devices to people in African countries who could put them to good use such as education and finding jobs.
Ethical Issues.
The phrase "digital divide" refers to an inequality between people who do and don't have access to computing devices. This divide is most visible in third world countries when comparing them to first world countries. For example in 2012 India had 8.1% of its population log onto the internet via mobile computing daily, whereas in the UK adults aged 18-34 almost all used the internet daily (approximately 99%). This massive gap could be for a number of reasons: education, income, skills and age could all play a part in the digital divide. As well as people in different countries having less access to the internet, people of older ages tend to struggle getting online or using computers at all. This has to do with the speed as to which technology is progressing, as mentioned before it is constantly evolving at a rapid pace and this may make it hard for older aged and disabled people to keep up with each new addition or discovery within computing. This can lead to frustration and confusion on the older / disabled users end. Those of a generation who did not grow up with the internet can find it hard to adapt to one that it seemingly dominates, it has been a historic trend that new technology / discovery has been shunned by the older generation, for example paper was once turned down as something that could "never replace stone carvings". The unwillingness to adapt or the mental / physical incapability of it can make it an extremely tough and confusing task for aged / disabled people to undertake.
More and more data is collected everyday, and most people have no idea about it. Almost everything people use on the internet collects data about you as an individual, whether its personalised emails sent from an automated company robot or targeted ads that take from your google search history and show you exactly what you want to buy. Some people have a problem with companies and websites collecting this data in the first place, but the real privacy and security concern comes when thinking about how this data is being stored and secured. Hacking events have taken place against many notable companies (Sony, Tesco, Target etc) stealing information such as bank details, government information, health documents and basically all documents that could be used for blackmail, forgery or identity theft. Once someone has this data in their hands they could know everything about you without ever meeting or talking to you, and many companies have been successfully sued for neglecting to protect this sensitive data.
There are also certain services that sell off data collected about a user to other companies (Facebook is a notable practitioner of this technique) to target you on a more personal level, with ads about your interests and searches.
Even though most of this sensitive data is encrypted in secure sites, as encryption gets harder to crack hackers get more ingenious ways of hacking them.
As mentioned hacking is a major issues when it comes to security online, and therefore there have been several acts to stop and prosecute people who commit such crimes such as the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 that is "An Act to make provision for securing computer material against unauthorised access or modification; and for connected purposes". Also as mentioned companies are held against law to protect the data they acquire or suffer legal action according to the Data Protection Act 1998. This ensures that companies take 100% responsibility for the data they handle if this data is stolen.
It is often said that once something is on the internet, it is on there forever and that saying holds a lot of truth. Photos that have been deleted off of iPhone's can be found using cloud storage services. If any video of you has ever been uploaded to YouTube or some other video sharing website there is most likely an archived version of it. That is not to mention the fact that most people download a video that has blown up if it is likely to be taken down. Loss of control over your own copyrighted imagery or content is a real issue on the internet, even massive, multi-million companies cannot stop people torrenting or illegally streaming movies and games off of the internet.
Another current ethical issue is the sophistication of artificial intelligence and the possibility of a smart or self aware AI / robot. That type of AI has the potential to outsmart human intelligence and "go rouge". It is often warned by experts that while progress is good, progress at such a unprecedented speed could lead to us creating something we don't fully understand. However, these results are mostly avoided due to Asimov's 3 laws of robotics, which are namely:
1) A robot may not injure a human being.
2) A robot must obey orders given to it by a human being except for when that order conflicts with the First Law.
3)A robot must protect its own life except for when it conflicts with the First or Second Law.
These rules have been followed for decades to ensure that robotics does not get out of hand. These rules are also the reason that robotic weapon systems are considered controversial since they would directly conflict with the First Law.
The internet can provide a window of communication and exploration that many people could only dream of in a time before the World Wide Web. However, being a mostly unregulated and hard to shutdown database has a lot of downsides and allows undesirables and criminals to use it for things such as drug deals on the dark web, planned murders and child porn and other disgusting activities can also be found on the internet. The internet has also gave way to a whole new way of harassment; Cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is now considered a crime in most countries and it can lead to low self esteem, depression and even suicide.
Luring and Cat-fishing has also become a problem online, with predators using social media to "groom" children into their hands.
At its best the internet is a joyful and knowledgeable encyclopedia that can entertain, connect and allow people to explore but it can also be an unfiltered mess of illegal activity at its worst.
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