Social impacts of using IT

1. Social impacts of using IT Conner Clark A41186

2. Local communities: Developments in IT has lead to changes in the way local communities function, socialize and in a whole, work. For example:people are now going online to talk to each other, using Social Networking Sites such as Facebook. These are an efficient way to communicate quickly and easily to people, and it doesn’t require effort. However, although it is easy to communicate with people with screen to screen, it has it negatives, people will become less sociable in society as well as this, the could become very bored and start socializing during important periods of time, for example, in college. IT has affected shops, especially local shops in small areas, such as a village. If people have access to internet and can easily find a cheaper deal online, I.E. for a weekly shop and can save over £20 a time, they will most likely carry on shopping online, and not use the other shops as their main shop, and buy less and less from there. This will give a negative impact on society on a whole because shop keepers will loose money and eventually have to close their business; which could easily bring down the communities spirit and it’s sense of belonging as everyone will stop going out as it can all be done in the security of their own home. An advantage for local communities are that they can get their shopping/good at a cheaper rate possibly, and have a larger range of choice, as well as this, they can easily talk to people at a lot quicker rate and communicate with ease, and it is a lot more safer staying inside to communicate than going outside and communicating, which could put people in danger. An disadvantage could be for the business’ in the local community can get shut down, or even worse, go in debt. When people communicate online, it slowly lowers their social skills usually, and can put people into depression as they never communicate face to face, and rather online. Using Social networks can also be dangerous with the potential risk of criminals getting your details. Especially if the audience using the social network site is a venerable child who is not familiar with the risks of Social Networking sites. Conner Clark A41186

3. Avaliability of Jobs Jobs have been affected from IT in endless ways, for example, one way it has been affected is that now Employers can advertise to a bigger audience (The Internet )and can have a better choice and variety rather than limiting themselves to a specific audience, their community. As the employers use the internet to advertise their job positions, this gives a much more bigger competition to get the placement, which can cause a negative impact on society. In one way that IT has benefited the job market, is that employers now can give their employees the chance to work at home, which can work well for people with large families who struggle to spend time with each other, this can give them the opportunity to spend more time with them, and work with a lot less stress from their bosses looking down at them all the time watching every move they do in a work place. However, this can also be bad as they will lack the social skills and the bond with their colleagues and bosses who could help them when they are stuck, whereas at home, they can not just simply ask their boss what to do, they have to figure it out or Email/Call them which may take a while to do, or even worse, if their computer breaks down, or their facilities, they will have no spare PCs to use. The employee’s may decide to hire people from outside of their community, for example, if they are looking for building work, they may put an advert online in hope to get it for a lot cheaper, and possibly better quality. Furthermore – IT has overcame Humans and now robots can perform better and more efficient tasks than Humans. These are good as they can generate a lot more profit, even though you’ll loose workers, you’ll also gain workers as it’ll mean people will have to keep maintaining the robots when they break down or when they are in bad condition. This is good for employees as they can make more profit and a constant profit, unlike with Humans, the goods they make per hour will differ widely, whereas a Robot will do the same amount every hour, and can actually be left turned on 24/7, whereas Humans will need breaks. Self service checkouts for example are a great use of Robots, they can be utilized to help the Humans buy goods at a lot faster rate than without, and can do the job a lot quicker sometimes. If businesses went overboard and only used these robot self service machines, people would not be able to ask questions, for example, a question about if a certain food will set of allergies to nuts. Even though a small group of employers will save money from not hiring employers, the machines will not serve as a Human and act like one. So overall, it is bad for society and having too much would have an negative affect. However, sometimes Robots can serve for an extremely important purpose, saving peoples lives. For example with bomb disposal experts, they would send a robot in, as they control it, in order to reduce risk of loosing their own life. As well as this, if everyone lost their jobs, or if there was high percentage (30-40%) then people would end up on benefits, which then would mean the government would eventually not be able to pay out for it, and have to reduce it, which could cause riots & society collpasing. Conner Clark A41186

4. Inequality in Broadband Access Inequality in Broadband Access affects mainly people in the rural areas of England. The Rural area is a term for Country Side where broadband providers such as BT do not provide internet to them areas as there isn’t enough demand for it, therefore, the people lose out, especially if its businesses who need it, they can not use the internet. Secondly, some people may not be able to afford the monthly cost of Internet access as sometimes, especially in less demanding areas, it will be considerably more than in a place such as London where Internet is on high demand therefore can be sold cheaper. Because people can not afford internet, they do not get it. Furthermore, some people may have a disability and can’t work the computer, this can range from poor eye sight, to having major disabilities like amputees.Or, it may just be as simple as they do not know how to use the computer at all, and this is usually more common in the Elderly and OAP’s. The elderly and also everyone else, may be worried about being scammed online from cheap deals which seem to good to be true, so in these people may loose out on potentially thousands of their hard earned money. If everything was put online, from shopping to Government information, people would have to use the Internet to find out what once would have been basic, and easy to get information, so this means a percentage of people in the UK would not be able to access this information as they may have disabilities or trouble using a Computer, and therefore they’ll lose out on important information which could drastically change their lives in the long run if they didn’t know about it. However, if it was put online then people could shop with ease in their own home and reduce pollution, until the goods get shipped from where ever it is being shipped from, and as well as this, when people go out in their vehicles to go shopping (For example) they are also reducing the chances of potentially life ending accidents. In addition, if everything was put online, businesses such as Amazon would struggle shipping out hundreds of thousands of orders per day, for the ‘essentials’ such as Bread and Milk which people use daily. Overall, having everything online could be good if people do not have the time to do their own shopping due to work and what not; then this would be a good idea, however, the majority of the population can find a spare hour or two a week to go out and do some shopping, which isn’t hard at all it just requires time (and money) so shopping online is something they can live without, so overall, having everything online is bad, especially for those without access for specific reasons. Conner Clark A41186