Informational Technology And Its Effect On Society Essay - 905 words

Informational Technology And Its Effect On Society Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special one, indeed. A machine that has done all this and more now exists in nearly every business and nearly every household in the U.S. This incredible invention is the computer. Computers have had both positive and negative effects on the society, making peoples lives more convenient and entertaining on one hand, and full of danger and threat of loss of information, on the other. Currently, we are in the middle of what is known as the information age, where information (designs, art, science discoveries) takes on as much importance as physical objects. An increasing part of the economy is now devoted to the handling of information: creating, distributing, editing, and deleting. People are now stealing ideas for the same reasons as people still steal objects. The most important thing to an information age economy is the ability to transmit information quickly and cheaply.


Telephones, copiers, overnight delivery services, and fax machines are the basis for our information-based economy. The above list does not include one means of communication that is more important, because it is not an extension of old technology. When computers were first connected in large networks during the late 1970s, an interesting new form of communication sprang up. Electronic mail now bears little resemblance to the postal version that still dominates long distance communication. In almost all respects it is much better. The effect of all this on the scientific community is to speed up research greatly.


Instead of waiting for the next journal to arrive by mail, scientist can find out what is going on right at that time not just last year or last month. This allows scientists to take advantage of new research quickly, which makes them work better. Even though this system is very good, it still has some major flaws. The first of which being that any news older than two weeks is deleted. This means that a new user of the Internet cannot take advantage of previous information. The network news is also not a good place to find reference information, the facilities simply do not exist.


It is not a good place to learn of research in general, only a place to learn of recent events. This technology will affect human society in every way possible. Some people have suggested that humans will remain the same, just doing different things. However, it is also possible that humans will not even be human f ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: computer, personal power, computers, information age, invention

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