Introduction
The use of computers can be traced back to the late 1940s when first-generation computers were invented. During this time, people did not embrace the new computer culture and, therefore, there was limited use of computers. Computer usage became popular in the late 1950s when third-generation computers were invented (Estes 63). During this time, people began to appreciate computers and the culture of computer usage became popular. Later, a microcomputer device was invented and this revolutionized business processes and the way people carried out their work. This device was designed to smoothen operations in the business sector and as such, it greatly eased the process of business computations. The second invention after computers in that century was the internet with the first form being the ARPAnet, which protected the information flow that existed between installations by the army. In the early 1970s, ARPAnet was extended to universities to improve education standards through research, and this improved education standards in universities. Two years later, the first internet connection became available to the public. This paper will look at how the use of computers has helped improve the lives and businesses of many people.
Discussion
Today, the use of computers has emerged as a key factor that has helped to improve the social and economic lives of most people (Benyon and Dunkerley 97). No one can deny that computers are helpful tools. This is evident due to the way human beings tend to move close and closer to them, i.e. they feel the urge to use them in an aim to fulfill some inner desires. The direction to which a society heads attribute to use and functionality of a computer. This is because, for a society to move forward positively, individuals in that society must be in the procession of unique information. This information does not just come and plant itself in an individual. Rather, computers ensure the availability of the information (Estes 65).
Through the internet, people can access enriching information whose nature is particularly vital especially towards situations facing life. It is through computers that people come to know and learn about theoretical facts, educational materials, and how that information applies to daily life situations. This becomes the basis of societal growth (Nardi 39). Individuals holding different information will come together, whether consciously or unconsciously, and through social interactions, share their held information. These individuals serve as the intellectuals in society, employ the art of information to combine their ideologies logically and as a result, society takes a new and unique direction that favors the socio-economic status of the society. This argument bases the rising living standards resulting from the integration of the society to the dependency of the computer to enrich oneself to constructive information.
Besides, due to improvement in technology relating to computer system use, the life of individuals becomes simple and eliminates those activities that are in nature tedious. As such, household activities that include payment of bills are computer-dependent and, therefore, save time, energy, and resources. Consequently, a person gets time to attend to other pertinent things that inflict development oh his household as well as for the community in the long run. It only takes a person, few straightforward steps using a computer to attend to issues at the comfort of one’s home rather than doing the same in a hard way, e.g. going to line up To offset the bills.
The Internet is used in such a way that one can do transactions or any other thing from the comfort of your home. The alternative method other than using the computer to perform these activities is involving your physical self, which, according to the modern days is unhanding situations for most people. These duties are inevitable, and people tend to use energy towards executing those (Estes 69). From the existence of computers, a great number of people prefer to depend on computer functionality to execute them. If there is a corruption of the computer system, people tend to become lost and are not aware of what course of action to follow. Therefore, a computer utilized to ensure that tedious activities are handled or executed with ease and this in turn helps improve the life situation. Resources that would have been used to perform these tasks physically is instead applied to other meaningful life-improving situations (Nardi 34).
The art of memorization has gradually faded away due to the increased use of computer systems. During the early years of personal development, the power of memorization is mostly enhanced. As one grows and becomes aware of the prevailing technological situation, he or she becomes increasingly vigilant and will have a desire to know the essence of that technology. If he finds it favorable, he will have a pushy attitude as he strives to acquit himself with the field. The issue of memorization and dependency on computers is largely attributable to the storage nature of a computer. People tend to store certain information in computers instead of developing a tendency of putting it into one’s fingertips.
The argument towards this is that humans will prefer a computer, as the best means to store information since it is retrievable at any time and is secure considering other factors remain constant. People hate situations that require memorizing because such activities require a lot of energy and power to recall. It therefore, drives them to advocate the computer (Estes 71). This has a benefit to lives in disguise. As such, one may possess some vital information or formulas stored in the psychological state. The information might be unknown to anyone else. If something happens, and of which is mentally damaging such that, that person cannot comprehend or reason properly, the information will never come into the limelight. It is for this reason that dependency on a computer to store information exists. If that person suffers mentally, the information will still come to use, as it is retrievable and that information could be pivotal in societal progress.
In business organizations, due to the integration of internal as well as the external business environment in which businesses operate, dependency on computers becomes inevitable. In an organization, operations have wide scopes, and intuition alone cannot handle the coverage. Records of data, financial information, employee profiles, etc must be prepared and preserved within the institution. Again, dependency on computers emerges. A computer would make this look like a small event as it would have been if everything were manual. A computer has to be used to make processes easy. This impacts the attainment of whatever targeted milestone the company has set. Consequently, those individuals will be attributed to that success if the firm realizes their goals and as a result, receive salary increments and promotions. This will in turn lead to improved standards of their lives (Berkeley Enterprises 27).
Other people hold different views in regards to humanity and computer dependency. As such, they view human actions as not too dependent on computers.
They argue that technological situations have brought about so many advancements is a different aspect of individual lives. They say that although human life entails computer use, people tend to take alternative courses of action. As such, many individuals prefer a situation where one learns how to adapt if he has a chance to survive the course of activities including the simplest form of activities done daily.
Another argument against the dependency nature of the human is that computers enable them to have an individual performance that is better and hence more production. They say that regarding humans as being too dependent on computers is like saying, people are too dependent on tools. A computer is a tool and, as such, tools enable humans to achieve better performance (Denning 52).
They also view computers as devices that make people’s life easy and give users new ways of learning that individuals pay interest. Through them, it is possible to perform several things from home. They hold that it is indispensable to keep and observe a life away from the computer technology (Berkeley Enterprises 17).
Conclusion
As discussed above, it is evident that computers are key components in human life and they are applied in most aspects of life. Without computers, it would difficult to raise the living standards of society. Computer use has helped to improve the living standards of many people as well as aiding disabled people to carry out their daily activities. Thus, we can agree with Denning and Nardi when they say that computers help to raise the welfare of the community (Denning 55; Nardi 34).
Works Cited
Benyon, John and Dunkerley David. Globalization: the reader. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2008. Print.
Berkeley Enterprises. Computers and people. Berkeley,CA: Berkeley enterprises, 2008. Print.
Denning, Peter, J. The profession of IT: Who are we? Communications of the ACM, 44.2 (2001), 45-56.
Estes, Walters. Is the human mind obsolete? American scientist 68.1 (2000), 62-69. Print.
Nardi, Bonnie A. context and consciousness activity theory and human-computer interactions. Cambridge, MA: MIT press, 2010. Print.