The Role of Information Technology in the Society

A Term Paper by Ma. Eula Espanola

Information Technology connects the world and makes everything possible.

INTRODUCTION:



The dawn of a new age- the Information age-glows before us with the promise of a new ways of thinking, living and working. Amount t of information in the world is said to be doubling of every six to seven years. Can we keep up? We can but not without an understanding of how computers work and the ability to control for our own purposes.

Computers have moved into every nook and cranny of our daily lives. Where or not you personally know anything about it, you invoke computers when you make a bank withdrawal, buy groceries at the supermarket and even drive your car. But you will have a computer at your personal disposal. The answer today is “probably”. Almost any career in your future will involve a computer in some way.

We have heard a lot about bridges to the next century. Computer talk the same way, they want to build bridges to technology that users will not be afraid to cross. In fact, a recurring theme is that computers will be more accessible if they disappear. Not disappear altogether, of course, just be transferred from today’s duty, putty- colored boxes into computers so on obtrusive that they are not noticed. An example from today’s technology is the computer that manages a car’s antilock braking system without even knowing that a computer is part of the action. The future is already in sight. Soon workers will wonder how today’s mute passive boxes were ever called computers. Already some personal computers or terminals looked up to bigger machines, can talk, listen, and display live images. No computers are an island .They can call can one another send faxes, mail and messages. People who cannot leave along- they may even wear them one day. It seems to be the fate of the computers to move into the background –and to be everywhere.


BODY:

Information technology is technology that merges computers and high speed communications links. The fusion of computers and communications technologies is producing “technological convergence”. The technological merger has several industries through various devices that exchange information in the electronic format used by computers. The industries include computers, communications entertainment, mass media and other fields of information.

The essence of all revolutions, stated philosopher Hannah Arendt, is a start of new story in human experience. For us, the new story may be said to begun in 1991. In that year, according to the one who reported “companies for the first time spent more on computing and communications done on industrial mining farm and construction”. It adds:” InfoTech is now a vital as the air we breathe”. “InfoTech” - information technology. The arrival of information technology having a powerful consequences.

In the recent past, it was not possible to use your television set as a computer or to use as personal computer to watch broadcast TV programs now, however, technologies of television or computer are coming together. It means that, for the common electronic base, information can be communicated in all the ways we want, to receive. These include the familiar media of newspapers, photograph, films, recording, radio and television. However, it can also can be communicated through newer technologies satellite, fiber-optic cable, cellular phone, fox machines, or compact disk for example more important is time goes on the same information may be exchanged among many kinds of equipment, using the language of computers.

Such us:

· The increased need for continuous learning

· Adapting to less well – defined as an information worker”

· The stopped - pace of change

· Exposure to relatively unregulated technical and social information from other cultures via global networks.

Technological convergence is derived from a combination of two recent technologies- computers and communications.

A computers is a programmable, multi use machine that accepts data – raw facts and figures - and processes or manipulates, it into information we can use, such as summaries or totals. Its purpose is to speed up problem solving, and increase productivity.

Communications or telecommunications, technology consists of electromagnetic devices and systems for communicating long distances. The principal examples are telephone, radio, television and cable.

Computer technology and communications technology was developed independently , like rails in a railroad track that never merge. Since then, however, they have gradually fused together, producing a new information environment.

People, data or information, and communications are some common elements of computer and communication system.

People are the most important part and the beneficiaries of a computer and communications system. Professionals and end-users are the common person who uses information technology. People can analyze, develop and improve computer systems. Their assessment needs sometimes faulty, their emotions may also affect their performance, and their perceptions can be too slow. And this can also complicate the operation of a system.

People of all levels and skills, from novices to programmers, are the users and operators of the system. The whole point of the system, of course, is to benefit people.

Though used loosely all the time, the word “data” has some precise and distinct meanings.

Data can be considered as the raw material. Whether in paper, electronic, or other form which is processed by the computer. In other words, data consists of the raw facts and figures that are processed into information.

Communications is defined as the electronic transfer of data from one place to another. Communication become digital, we will see a variety of suppliers, using wired of wireless connections, providing data in digital form: telephone companies, cable-TV services, news and information services, movie and television archives, interactive shopping channels, video catalogs, and more.

Communications or telecommunications has had three important developments. They are better communications channels, better networks, and better sending and receiving devices.

As mentioned, data may be sent by wired or wireless connections. Even more interesting has been the expansion of wireless communication. Now, we have may more kinds of two-way radio, cellular telephone, and paging devices than we had in the past years.

When we heard the word “network”, many of us think of a broadcast network, a group of radio or television broadcasting stations that cut costs by airing the same programs. Here, however, we are concerned with communications networks, which connect one or more telephones or computers or associated devices. Communications networks are crucial to technological convergence, for they allow information to be exchanged electronically.

A communications network may be large or small, private or public, wired or wireless or both. In addition, smaller networks may be connected to large once. For instance, a Local Area Network (LAN) may be used to connect users located near one another, as in the same building.

Part of the excitement about telecommunications in the last decade or so has been the development of new devices or gadgets for sending and receiving information. Two examples are the cellular phone and the fax machine.

You may still hear the sounds of late-night typing in a college residence hall. However, it’s certainly not the smart way to work anymore. Indeed, coping with a typewriter actually detracts from learning. You’re worrying about mistakes and avoiding retyping a whole paper rather than concentrating on educational principles. Using computer to write your papers not only makes life easier, it also opens up new areas of freedom and knowledge and helps prepare you for the future.

Thus, students who come to college with a personal computer as part of their luggage are certainly ahead of the game. If you don’t have one, however, there are other options.

College students use more of the Internet or the World Wide Web for home works and research studies. Most commonly we need online information services. Online information services provide computer users access among other things, bulletin boards; research and news resources; games, entertainment, and clubs; and travel and shopping services.

Intellectual property consists of the products of the human mind. Such property can be protected by copyright, the exclusive legal right that prohibits copying without the permission Internet are useful, especially to college students for research, but then sometimes students forget to use their own knowledge, they just copy and paste things in the computer.

Plagiarism is the expropriation of another writer’s text, findings, or interpretations and presenting it as one’s own. Information technology puts a new face on plagiarism. Info tech helps but it has it’s own limitation most especially to students or people who has no enough knowledge on the thins around them.

Information Technology has had some adverse effects on the environment, including energy consumption and environmental pollution.

As the upgrade merry-go-round continues, as it has since the birth of the computer industry, more and more people are joining the Digital Revolution.

Everyone hopes, of course, that the principal effects of this growth will be beneficial. But you need not be anti-technology to wonder just what negative impact computerization will have. How, for instance, will it affect the environment energy consumption and environmental pollution.

Communities like to see computer manufacturers move to their areas because they are viewed as being nonpolluting. Is this true? Actually, in the past, chemicals used to manufacture semiconductors polluted air, soil and ground water. Today, however, computer makers are literally cleaning up their act.

Smallness in TVs, phones, radios, camcorders, CD players, and computers is now largely taken for granted. In the 1980s portability, or mobility, meant trading off computing power and convenience in return for smaller size and weight. Today, however, we are getting close to the point where we don’t have to give up anything. As a result, experts predict that small, powerful, wireless personal electronic devices will soon transform our lives far more than the personal computer has done so far.

By the end of the decade, expert say that the breed of portable electronics will transform our lives more than the personal computer did during the 1980s. For the truth is that the personal computer didn’t turn out to be personal. It stayed put while its users moved around.

By contrast, the new generation of machines will be truly personal computers, designed for our mobile lives. We will view office video presentations or the homeward train ride, and reply to electronic mail during boring movies on television.

Portability, clearly, will profoundly change the way we live and work, say Richard Shaffer, who writes a newsletter about high-tech developments. “People will soon be able to structure their work around their lives,” he predicts, rather than the reverse.”

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, we should all be considered about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

The future was rapidly becoming present. Technology changes our life. The revolution of technological age system and industries has many names.

The Digital Age, the Information Age, the Age of Convergence., the Interactive Revolution, the Multimedia Revolution, the Information superhighway or “Infobahn” or I-way or Data way.

Whatever it’s called, the revolution is happening in all parts of our society and in all parts of the world, and it’s consequence will revolve throughout our lifetime.

Computer pioneer John Van Neumann once said that the computer should not be called the “computer” but rather the “all-purpose machine”. After all, he pointed out, it is not just a gadget for doing calculations. The most striking thing about it is that it can be put to any number of uses.

More than ever, we are now seeing just how true that is.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.) International Student Edition COMPUTERS tools for an Information Age “H.L Capron”
2.) Using Information Technology A practical Introduction to Computers and Communication “Williams Sawyer Hutchinson”
3.) Discovering Computers Thomson Asian Editor “Shelly Cashman Vermaat”




*** PLAGIARISM IS A CRIME. CONTACT THE AUTHORS/BLOG ADMIN FOR REPRODUCTION OF ANY PART OF THIS PAPER. ALL ARTICLES HERE ARE MONITORED BY COPYSCAPE, SO ANY LEVEL OF COPYING CAN BE DETECTED BY PLAGIARISM SOFTWARE.