Introduction
In this document I am going to be talking about how IT has made an impact in our society. I will be talking about the ways that IT has made an impact in super markets, education, medicine, banking, small business and more. I will be showing you just how dependant on IT we are. I will also be covering the potential threats which have been introduced by the use of IT.
I have put all the information below up on blogger at: http://brianthesocialimpactofitinoursociety.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/advantages-of-epos.html
One of the biggest disadvantages of emails is accidently opening and email with viruses attached, which could corrupt your computer and even steal your personal files. Another disadvantage of an email is that you would have to deal with spam and spoof emails. Spam is useless emails containing advertisements and spoof emails are emails that are trying to imitate other business or companies to try and steal your personal information.
Online shopping
Some disadvantages of online shopping is that there could be a charge for delivery in some online stores, items could be missing from your order and if you are not happy with your purchase it can be a little harder to return it.
Online bank
Smart phone
Smartphone’s also have disadvantages. One of the biggest disadvantages is hacking. This is when someone tries to hack into your mobile phone. If they are successful they could read all you private messages, steal all the contacts on your phone, listen to your voice mails and view you private images and videos.
Laptop and Netbook computers
The biggest disadvantage of this is that if you have not backed up the documents on your laptop, and if the hard drive was to fail, you could end up losing all of your work.
IT has immensely changed the way that we listen to music. From records to cassette tapes to CD’s and now to MP3 players. MP3 players have also got smaller and smaller over the years while the storage capacity has gotten bigger. The only disadvantage of MP3 players is the battery life, but it has also improved over the years.
Social networking sites have made a huge impact in our society. They have changed the way we communicate with one another and share photos. It has also become a huge form of advertising with lots of small business and also even larger business advertising offers that they have on and also listing what services they have to offer.
Some disadvantages of social networking sites are cyber bullying, identity theft, spam and downloading adware.
Search engines e.g. Google, yahoo
Some disadvantages are that some of our libraries are starting to close down. In addition to this information that we are looking for may be irrelevant as their may be too much information and we may sometimes never select the correct information.
Wikipedia is one of the internets biggest collections of information. It stores data on everything and anything that you can think of. It has changed the way that we research information. One of the biggest disadvantages of Wikipedia is that anyone can upload information on to it, fact or fiction. So not everything on Wikipedia in fact.
Social impact of ICT
Impacts of IT and unemployment
Technology has done away with lots traditional jobs e.g. Workers skills have been lost due to computers and programs like Microsoft office. Skills like type writing.
Farmers are now able to get there livestock scanned for any diseases. They are also able to store information like how many animals they have on a database and record if any of them have died and this has done away with workers.
Using ICT to run a small business
Below I have provided some examples of how a small business could use different software packages.
Spreadsheets
They can use spreadsheets to store information like there costs, profits and sales that they have made throughout there years in business.
Graphics
Small businesses could use graphic editors to create a logo for their company and also create advertisement flyers.
Word processing
They could use word processors to create invoices, letter heads, business cards etc.
Data base
They could use databases to store records on all their customers and also create forms to make it easier for staff to enter data.
Accounts
A small business would record all their incomings and outgoings of all their money and also record their VAT.
E-mail
They can use emails for advertising their business and also to contact their staff that work for the company.
Internet browser
A small business can use the internet to research new products, advertise their company and also keep up to date on the current market.
Impact of IT in banking
IT has impacted banking immensely in this last 20 years. You can now do your banking over the telephone and also online. Instead of banks having to write down each customer’s information by hand they can record, amend and delete them on a database.
IT has also made it a lot easier to access your money since they introduced ATM machines. Instead of having to wait for a bank to open, you can take money out 24/7 using a debit card or a credit card on an ATM machine.
You can also purchase products using debit or credit cards online or in store instead of having to carry cash about with you every where you go. This is a safer way of carrying your money.
How manufacturing has had an impact on IT
IT has made an impact manufacturing. It has changed the order process, and has made it a much faster transaction. It has made it easier to keep on top of stock reports and replacements. IT has also made it much easier to track the progress of an order that you have made.
IT has made it easier for manufactures to keep on top of their project and manage their budget and timescale.
Over the last 20 years there has been and increase in software such as CAM and CAD.
CAM
CAD
An example of a CAD program would be AutoCAD. CAD can be used to draw designs to a perfect scale and then printed out to offer to a client and this could enhance sales and marketing.
CAD produces Vector based graphics which are scalable. This means that when you resize the image it does not lose quality. This is different than a Bit-mapped graphics because when you resize a bit-map image it loses its quality.
How IT has made an impact on medicine
Everyone’s Medical records get stored in a data base so that it is easier for doctors, surgeons and nurses to check if there is any problems wrong with their patients.
Hospitals are able to monitor blood pressure and patient’s heart beat, this can very import so they can check if their patient is strong enough to go into surgery.
There are also expert systems such as x-ray and MRI scans. X-ray’s can be used to check if a patient has broken any bones in there body and MRI scans can be used to check if the patient has any form of cancer or tumors.
Junior doctors can now do Virtual surgery on a computer which can massively help them in their learning to become a doctor.
Deaf people have hearing aids which help them to hear a lot clearer. Over the years technology has improved and hearing aids have gotten better and also smaller.
IT has really helped People who have visual impairments. There is now software that you can get for your computer that reads out whatever you hover over on the screen. There are also magnifiers built in which can zoom in on text to make it easier to read.
How IT has made an impact on Education
Students are now able to upload all there assignments online to get marked by a teacher. This can very good if a student is sick and can’t make it into school to hand in their assignments. They can also check what assignments they have to do by logging on to a virtual learning environment e.g. Moodle. Another way of doing assignments is to post them on to a blog for your teachers to examine.
Nowadays students can type all of their assignments up on a computer which is much faster and if they make any mistakes they can amend it with no bother.
Teachers can now use over head projectors to show power point presentations to their students to help them with their assignments. They can also use interactive white boards to highlight important information.
Students can now do distance learning which is a courses where you can view your course material and assignments online and complete assignments at home. The advantages of this are that you don’t have to spend money on traveling, you have more control over the learning process and students can learn at times which are consequent to them.
The disadvantages of this would be that you need to have a lot of self discipline to work at home without getting distracted, students can face the feeling of isolation from being alone all the time when they are doing their assignments, the lack of human interaction and also not being able to ask someone if you aren’t sure on how to do something.
How IT has made an impact on Supermarkets
Supermarkets have come along way in this last 20 years. Most supermarkets nowadays have all got EPOS, EPOS stands for electronic point of sale.
EPOS includes the monitor, scanner, till, Chip & Pin, microphone Customer Displays, Keyboards, and Weighing Scales. The advantages of EPOS is that is quick to use, shows the change to give to the customer, customers get a full receipt which show all the items that the have purchased and if there has been any discount added, shows the customer what he needs to pay and they also have a microphone to call in more staff if they get to busy and they can’t handle all the customers on their own. Another advantage would be that all the items get stored in a database and once an item gets scanned it removes one item from the stocks on the data base. This makes it easier to keep track of stock and it also make it a lot harder for items to run out of stock.
The disadvantages would be that it is expensive to install and maintain which make it hard for small shops to have, if a bar code gets damaged they will have to enter in the code manually or else get the same item without a damaged bar code to scan.
People are losing out on jobs because EPOS is making it faster and easier to serve customers and if the electric was to go of the shop wouldn’t be able to do anything because everything has to be registered on the EPOS.
How are individuals dependant on IT
Weather warnings
IT has made a huge impact in the way that we get are weather. The Met office can now predict if there is going to be any severe weather warnings like flood, Thunderstorm and ice. In other countries they can forecast even bigger weather warnings like Hurricanes and tornados. Warnings like these are saving peoples lives almost every day around the world. IT is always evolving and the met office is becoming more and more accurate as IT improves.
Cars
Cars are very important in everyday life. IT is very important in cars and is becoming more and more visible in them. IT has had an impact in safety, fuel consumption, navigation, parking and a lot more other things. There are now new cars coming out with automatic braking systems built in. This means if a car was to brake suddenly in front of you while you were driving the automatic braking system would kick in and automatically brake your own car to avoid colliding with the car in front.
There is also technology which is called stop-start technology. What this does is while you are driving along and then have to stop for something like traffic lights, your car would automatically turn of the engine and when you want to take of again it automatically starts up your car. Technology like this car immensely improved the fuel consumption of cars.
IT has change the way we navigate. Instead of having to get out a map to find out how to get somewhere, we can now just type the destination into a satellite navigation systems and it would show you exactly how to get there. Most new cars nowadays are coming with satellite navigation systems built in and they have become more and more accurate over the years. Most new cars nowadays are coming out with built in parking sensors and rear view cameras. The parking sensors let you know when you are getting close to an object like a car or a wall and would start to beep rapidly to let you know. The rear view camera is simply a camera at the back of your car which would get displayed on a monitor inside your car. It would come on automatically when you start reversing so that you can see clearly what is behind you while you are reversing.
Routine chores
Individuals are very dependant on IT to do all their routine chores like cleaning, cooking, banking, communication, entertainment, shopping and booking holidays etc. People are dependant on IT to check their bank balance online, transfer money to people and setup direct debits.
IT has change the way that individuals do their washing. Instead of having to wash clothes and dishes by hand you can now use washing machines and dishwashers which are much fast and a lot better.
Potential Threats which have been introduced by the use of IT
Identity Theft
IT has caused a big increase in Identity theft. Identity theft is when someone takes your personal information and uses it to pretend to be you. They could use your personal details to setup a credit card under your name and purchase items which you could end up having to pay for. The biggest cause of identity theft is fake websites claiming to be an official bank or company websites. They would normally send you an email looking you to go onto their website to enter in your personal information and this is where you could become a victim to identity theft.
Hackers
Hackers are one of the biggest threats that have been introduced by the use of IT. They are individuals who are able to gain access to your home or work computer and steal all your personal documents. They can also delete everything that you have on your computer and corrupt your system files which would make your computer unable to operate.
Copyright
IT has increased the potential threat of braking copyright laws. Copyright is when you steal someone’s work and make it look like you where the one to create it or it could be using someone’s art work on your website without getting permission from the person who made it. This can be things like computer programs, art work, music etc.
Stalkers
IT has increased the potential threat of stalkers. People are now being stalked on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and My Space. On smart phones with GPS people are now uploading there location onto these social networking sites and this is making it easier for stalkers to target their victims.
Cyber Bullying
Since IT has introduced online gaming, social networking sites, chat rooms and mobile phones, cyber bullying has came along with it. Cyber bullying is a form of bullying but it is carried out over different sorts of computer communication devises. Cyber bullying can seriously effect people’s wellbeing and leave them feeling scared, lonely and very upset. There are no real reasons why people commit cyber bulling but some possible reasons would be that they are jealous of the victim and want to get revenge on them because they don’t have what the victim has. It could also be that the person finds it entertaining to bully someone or it could because they get bored and have nothing better to do.
Viruses
IT has introduced thhe potential treat which is viruses. There are lots of different types of viruses, some more harmful than others. Here are some different types of viruses: Worms, Trojans, Spyware and Adware. All of these could wreak havoc on a computer system. They could also spread throughout a computer network and get onto every computer that you have. They could delete files on every computer, cause your computers to become very slow and less responsive, steal all your personal information and record every keystroke that you type on your computer like usernames, password, bank details, credit card numbers.
Spyware
Spyware is a program that can register every keystroke that you make. It can steal all your personal information that you type on to your computer like usernames, password, bank details, credit card numbers and all your private emails.
Trojan
A Trojan is a program that hides itself on your computer under the name of a different program. The Trojan then creates a backdoor into your computer to allows other virus and hackers to access your computer.
Adware
Adware is a virus that is used for advertising. Most adware can be safe but some can come with spyware. Adware can come in the form of a free tool bar or even a game which you would install onto your computer yourself.
Spoofing
Spoofing is when someone is pretending to be someone or something that they are not. There are different types of spoofing. There is email spoofing, website spoofing, and also IP spoofing.
Phishing
Phishing is the act of sending emails that are falsely claiming to be a legitimate organisation In order to try and steal your personal information.
Spam
Spam is unwanted mail that gets sent to your email address. These are most likely to be advertising something, but they can also even contain other types of viruses.
Worm
A worm is a program that replicates itself on your computer and it can use up you computers resources like the memory, hard drive and network connection. This can cause your computer to become very slow and less responsive.
Conclusion
As you can see, IT has made a huge impact in our society. I have covered how IT has made an impact in unemployment, small businesses, banking, manufacturing, medication, education, supermarkets, and individuals. I have also listed the potentials threats that IT has introduced. I hope that this document has made you more aware just how dependant we really are on IT.
Bibliography
Rich Ling (2004) “The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone's Impact on Society”
http://istechnologymakinguslazy.weebly.com/body.html : Last accessed 28/04/2012
http://gosiast.com/programs-courses-descriptions/CADM.shtml : Last accessed 27/04/2012
