I will get into more detail in just a minute, but first I want to talk about the Internet a tad more. Just to say as a person who was born when computers came domestically popular and the Internet really kicked off I have seen massive changes in society and has effectively improve and degraded many communities in my opinion. But enough about my complaining for a little bit, lets take a look at the major impacts of IT.
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Social Impacts
When I say Social Impacts I mean communities and local areas. Domestic use for such an example because Social can be broken so much more for later. Since 1997 computers have become domestically, an essential for people. Now 13 years later it hasn't changed in fact it has evolved even further feeding our rotting feces called minds. But I digress and it'd be hypocritical of me to say I'm not brainwashed by the pretty LED greatness.
Moving on, lets start at the beginning of computers in the 60s in order to compare the change in 40 years. This was when computers were extraordinarily basic and were only used really for accounting or mathematical problems.
But anyway jumping ten years later in the 70s and computers had become much more developed and could be used in offices in masses. These were computers that were basically a black screen with green writing, no pictures, mouse, just a keyboard attached to a monitor/hardrive. Also video games had just become invented which as well have massively changed. In the 70s video games were simply things like Pong, or Pacman etc you must know them all or living under a massive rock with no signs of life of any kind. These kind of games were huge bricks of technology only the rich could well afford. But video games very a huge hit with people even as simple as two bars hitting a ball making a "BONG!" just somehow became a thing.
Now in the 80s where video games really took the public. This was the decade when the famous Mario, Sonic and other popular series still thriving were born and sold massively on over-priced consoles such as the SNES, Atari, Dreamcast the list goes on. Lifestyles begun to change at that time. More people would spend time playing video games rather than more active activities. Obviously this didn't help with obesity another caused plagued in the domestic environment. Also I believe it caused a divide in communities (particularly in America or Great Britain) and sometimes in families too. I don't believe because of the game itself (that would be silly), but people would change from them. Another IT element that hit big was animation. You remember those old shows. Now I know what you're thinking. "But weren't there animations before computers were invented or allowed to businesses?" Well yes there were thank you Disney. But now with developed computers with a mouse and images, animators could use computers to animate rather than tedious drawings over and over. Many of you must remember watching weekend cartoons of anime for those Japanese fans. But besides that animations and cartoons developed strongly and continue to rot our minds to this day.
This is where we head into my generation the glorious 90s. IT really developed in this year as Microsoft became hugely big with there computers and software such as Windows. IT was used massively now at work in offices and where IT education was required in schools a lot more than earlier years. Also back on the topic of video games where they took another step of evolution amongst lives. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and Sega were the largest sellers of video games and always have been. In the 90s they all (well maybe exclude Sony) hit big time with new consoles and the most nostalgic games our generation can have such as Super Mario 64, Sonic Adventure, House of the Dead, Banjo Kazooie I could go on for hours. Now in the 90s this was when the Internet was really used. It became a vast library of knowledge and entertainment.
I just want to stop at entertainment a moment. Now most entertainment consisted of Music, Games, etc. But there is one form of entertainment that has destroyed the very foundation of the Internet and civilised living. I'm talking of course, about porn. Now porn is a touch and don't want to really go section but it must be shed to light. It has astonishingly become so popular on the Internet (In fact 70% of the Internet is porn) it has become a new selling point. The other problem is children being in arms reach of this as close as they are to the bleach in the cupboard under the sink.
So now we head in the new millenium 2000. Will technology advanced and repair itself for the better? ...Yes and No. Yes because the technological advancements we have achieve are far greater than imagined, most of the population of the globe has knowledge of computers and at least half of them use computers domestically and for business which has improve work efficiency in departments. Now No because of whats happened in the 90s with porn, and other bad habits of the Internet has still been pussing its indecent shenanigans everywhere.
Once again video games took a massive step in evolution with the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 game development has broadened into wider and unexplored areas which has made multi-million earning games. Motion controls was popular as well making the players active and interactive as well as introducing new type of players to the community. This generation saw families sometimes brought together or friends. I've known many couples who organise parties for video games especially the new Kinect system so from the divide it caused decades ago the hole has been filled by more friendly sensible games. Online communities grew too on the Internet and online gaming which saw people interacting with others all over the world. This had in a way brought people together and even made love happen for some people as a sort of dating service in a way.
So this shows how much computers have changed in the past 40 years and how we spend our free time in front of them. Computers do seem to have taken over most generic tasks of life for us but we can still have active lives and use computers so there is no need to condemn them as people do often.
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Effects on local communities
Ok I haved spoken about local communities before but I just want to make a section more in depth about the development computers have had in localised communities.
Let's start with video games a are I'm quite experienced in. Games are a good way to get friends to play together but when people play too much it can cause problems. For example arguments that they don't spend enough time with people and socialising. This did of course happen quite frequently across the globe because they seemed almost addictive but thats only really because wanted to be. People would blame the game but never the player who really was the only cause of being a social outcast. As I said in the previous section games (mainly modern ones) have brought people together and allowed wider social interaction so it's really a widely debated subject I'll stop at right here.
Now when we talk about how they changed local shops its less about feelings and more about employment. With the development of computers shopping changed a lot. Online shopping was very popular with the concept of ordering online and the goods being delivered which improve the Distribution units a lot and offered more jobs due to bulks of deliveries required. Although online shopping meaned that less shops would probably be built therefore Sales workers would lose jobs because of this. Smaller shops and old-fashioned (meaning shops with traditional aspects) would have harder times surviving with a healthy business due to the larger business and there technological advancements giving them a greater rate of productivity. This would cause them to die out and leave only larger shops in the running.
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Economic Impacts
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| Chart of employment in the UK in each sector. |
With computers jobs changed massively due to the increased productivity and the change in the age of technology. It became almost necessary with every job to have IT skills especially in offices filled with hundreds of computers. This of course reduced the amount of employment in places like factories and farms due to easier and more beneficial jobs with computers. This was a problem although there was a lot of emplyment for jobs with computers as you may have seen where a lot of big businesses have people working in the cubicles.
Here on the right is a chart showing the employment in the UK in each sector. Primary being places like farms, fishing, logging anything to do with extracting raw materials. Secondary to do with manufacturing so factories, chemical processing plants. Tertiary for jobs to do with services so restaurants, offices, leisure, travel and tourism. As you can see the Tertiary is the far more populated for employment. This was mainly caused because of computers which are used in I would say all Tertiary sector jobs. They are used in Primary and Secondary as well, but the majority is structured around Tertiary.
From this result the economy has had a bitter-sweet deal. They've lost many workers in Primary and Secondary but Tertiary has increased heavily, increasing employment in local areas, a highly dense commercial areas.
