Impact of ICT on Society

Since ICT had been introduced life has become much easier for a lot of people. ICT has rapidly evolved since it was discovered. There is new ICT Systems being invented year, and the old ICT Systems are updated. Things that were done by human are taken out of the market. ICT Systems are used al over the world for different purposes. In some parts of the world there are people that do not have access to ICT.

From the time when ICT was introduced life for employees and employers have become easier. For example

People could be served quickly as there is a equipment which is called EPOS which tags the code quickly and easily, which also records the stock control and also provides a receipt telling customers what they had brought at what cost.

Another improvement is that businesses now can communicate to suppliers through computers. In this way it is cheaper and quicker. They can e-mail them to say what product they need. Another improvement in ICT is that a lot of businesses now have there own retailing web sites for example Tescos. This means that people can shop online 24/7, which is an advantage for them.

Advantages of ICT for businesses

* Queues are shorter because it takes less time to get through the cashier.

* Employee’s work is easy as most of the work is done by the computers.

* More accurate stock control.

* Deliveries could be automatically sent through Internet

* Easier to pay for goods.

ICT has removed boring repetitive manual tasks in businesses because machinery is being used far more often. Jobs can be applied for online. Software can be shared remotely over the Internet, as well as documents and files. Shares can be also monitored, bought and sold over the Internet. New jobs have been created due to I.T such as call centres that solve your computing problems over the phone.

Also many people use their credit cards and other such cards to do their shopping. They can do this because of the communications between the shops and banks that allow the shops to take money out of your bank remotely to pay for products you purchase through the online shopping service.

With applications such as “video conferencing”, companies can interact with each other from thousands of miles away. Employees will not have to travel to other countries to discuss business ventures, but can do so via a video link. This cuts down costs for the company.

Online shopping is an advantage to customers who sit at home and shop as they can by the product and even look at the screenshots of the game or product to see how it looks like, so that when they buy it they know how it will be like. This screenshots on the left shows a cricket game that people would want to see and may want to buy but they need to see how the game and look at the quality of the game. This game is sold at Asda website. Online shopping is good for the business because there will be increase of customers and profit.

EPOS is an advantage for the company and the society because EPOS is when the stocks are recorded on the till and when the customers come and they buy a product the product is automatically deducted. And therefore when there are fewer products in stock then the manager would know when to order the stock when needed. This is an advantage to the customers, as the product that the customers will buy from the businesses will be there. This is only if the manager has regular checkups on the stock.

EFTPOS is an advantage to customers as it is easy to pay and you can pay buy credit card or by debit card. It is very easy to use and you don’t need to carry money around.

Disadvantages of ICT in businesses

* More packaging

* More inexperienced staff

* Loyalty cards can track your shopping they can target you

* More training required

Not only has ICT created new jobs, but it has also left a lot people unemployed because machines have taken over from them because they are cheaper and more reliable than a person. Machines are now performing many of the manual tasks such as EPOS, price tagging and many businesses operate 24 hours a day and are continually being monitored and controlled by computers. Computers are overall cheaper and faster than people.

People are also gradually loosing the habits of conversation. Instead of ringing someone up for an important message, a text message can be sent quickly and cheaply. Also instead of going out for shopping, people are instead staying at home and staring at the computer and buy product online. People become reliant on ICT and use ICT for a long period of time and can reduce social contact and feel that there is no need to leave their home.

Hacking can result in computer fraud and hackers can steal money from someone’s bank account because they have gained unauthorised access. Also if someone steals your credit card, they can easily spend your money online and the Internet makes this very easy to do so. People can also hack into someone’s computer now with the increasing number of people with broadband. If you don’t protect your computer with Anti virus software and Firewalls, people can gain access of your computer and damage files, or even spy on what you do on your computer.

Peoples privacy is also being effected by ICT because the government store a lot of personal data about us, and can monitor us with use of the increasing number of security cameras that are everywhere in cities. Databases store all our personal details and lots of people do not agree with this.

A disadvantage of online shopping is that it could be that the business doesn’t have the web site updated to tell customers that weather the products are available or not. It also costs to order from products online. Normally it costs to order products. You don’t have enough exercise when you do online shopping perhaps the customer who shops online needs to go out and go to the store as this may have an affect on the body.

Disadvantages of EPOS are that it is expensive equipment. Also if there is a break down of the wire or the actual machine, all of the information can be lost. Advantages of loyalty cards are that the business may increase profit and customers by having loyalty cards. You can have discount, which is an advantage for the customers, as they won’t pay that much money for product when they sign up for the loyalty card.

The disadvantages of loyalty cards are that the businesses make more money then the customers because if Sainsbury’s had milk on for a pound and they were selling it for 90p on other hand if Tesco’s sold there milk for 80p this will help Sainsbury’s to increase there profits.

Disadvantage of EFTPOS is that people can do fraud by entering someone else’s pin or using someone else’s credit or debit card. Sometimes it can take some time to deliver the money.

Overall, I think that the advantages of ICT over weigh the disadvantages. More opportunities have been opened up to us such as speaking to people the other side of the world very cheaply. Before the computer age, this was nearly impossible. Although I do not think that ICT should be put in front of social life. Things have been made easier for us to access such as online banking, and online shopping.

How organisations communicate with individuals and society

Around the world at this very moment millions of people are using communication systems to send information, speech and video to locations thousands of miles away from themselves. But what are communication systems? They can be almost anything involving communication. There are of course the most obvious forms such as telephones, email and generally the Internet as a whole. Chat lines, bulletin boards, telecommuting and user groups are also classed as communication systems. Teletext is available to most people with television sets, it is delivered through the TV Ariel tangled with the picture signal, it offers users constantly updated, non-interactive pages of information, and it could be described as an electronic magazine. Video conferencing is a vital form of communication for many businesses; it allows face-to-face meetings to take place without the participants being in the same room. For this you would need highly efficient computers, sound cards, cameras, compression cards, specialist software and modem connection, unless all these components are present it is extremely difficult to transmit such large amounts of data. Businesses are also using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which is the electronic exchange of routine business transactions, EDI permits hundreds of unrelated companies to communicate and process business transactions electronically. A communication system that is used not only in businesses but also in schools is intranet. It is the same as Internet but instead of being connected to World Wide Web you are networked with a group of computers that can communicate with each other.

The main income for businesses on the Internet is e-commerce; this is when they offer their products/services to the consumer in exchange for money. This is one use of a communication system, people increasingly use the mentioned channels for commercial use, the Internet for example is saturated with a vast amount of advertisements on every web page you go on, as are Teletext pages. Also research is carried out on these communication systems as well, companies find online surveys to be very fruitful.

There are a number of applications that communication systems are vital for. Businesses in are most affected. Finance can be dealt with efficiently through EDI, faxes and electronic mail. Marketing can take place on the Internet, with advertisements and online surveys, not to forget the actual sale of their products online (e-commerce). Supplies and paperwork needed for manufacturing can be obtained via e-mails, e-commerce and faxes. Business meetings in general can be conducted through video conferencing and telecommuting, offices could be intranet connected. It is not only businesses that benefit from communication systems; the rest of society can use these facilities also. You can check the weather on an Internet site or on Teletext. You can chat with friends over the Internet or send them electronic mail. You can order products over the Internet, not having to leave your house.

For all these uses however you do require modern technology. The bare minimum is to have telephone line, for Internet you will also need a fairly modern computer and modem that is connected to an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) line. ISDN runs at 64Kbs, to ensure you have the quickest possible connection that reduces

Download and website transfer times by a tenth, you will be using a broadband connection instead. You will find many users are switching to cable modems and Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL’s) to increase their bandwidth. There are two types of network that are used, Local Area Networks (LAN’s) and Wide Area Networks (WAN’s). LAN’s are normally used for networks required in the same building, where as WAN’s are used for much larger networks. All communication systems need Improved Protocol, two pieces of equipment must be able to speak to each other and communicate and the same applies to the user, TCP is also very important. When you are transferring money over the Internet you must be using a secure line, this is very important in e-commerce.

There are however many problems with communication systems. There is obviously an extensive amount of equipment and planning needed to successfully carry out some of the applications described and if there is only one component missing, everything can go disastrously wrong. Sending data over secure links is not always safe; it can at times be intercepted. Also, as just mentioned, protocol between equipment must be established, otherwise incompatibility could cause problems. Viruses are an enormous problem this modern era; they infect computer files by ‘piggybacking’ them in order to get executed. There is an even greater threat from hackers; there are people on the Internet who are capable of entering any secure, heavily guarded site that they wish to. They are highly skilled and can invade the computers of others, inspecting or tampering with programs or data stored on them. There have been many laws put into place to try and deter such people, the Data Protection & Computer Misuse Act are the most applicable, but copyright laws are also affected, especially when there are files available on the internet that are their illegally, e.g. music and video files.

After studying all the various communication systems, their uses and their usefulness, it would seem fair to say that they have enabled businesses, individuals and society to operate on a global basis. With the continuous advancement of all things technological, it’s evident that they are fast becoming the most convenient, cost efficient and effective option for any scenario.

The telephone system – Before ICT was introduced to supermarkets but the telephone system was very small for example calls could not be made far. (Not many links with other places and other companies). Now due to the introduction of ICT phone lines have gone digital enabling higher speeds of transferring information This led to the introduction of permanent hard lines with other companies (such as suppliers) therefore other technology’s such as video conferencing, conference calling with many lines, e-mail, internet networks, web-sites, intranet are also used to communicate fast and easily.

Links with product suppliers – Possibly the biggest impact ICT has had was in the field of effective supplier communications.

Internet Shopping – In recent years some supermarkets have introduced online shopping, which means customers can order their shopping from the comfort of their own home. By logging into supermarket web sites for example, Sainsbury’s web site customers can order their shopping and have it delivered to their home. The site greets customers by name and has the facility for customers to create and save shopping lists. While on this site customers can also check how many points they have on their loyalty cards.

Improved management – ICT has improved management. Ordinary tasks done by hand have been replaced by computer processes. All files are stored mainly on networked computer systems available for querying at the click of a button. Networks connect supermarket stores worldwide meaning files and data can transferred from anywhere to anywhere in seconds.

Here is a typical example of ICT in management:

Chief executive Manager can sit in his/her office in front of his computer and receive reports, files and other documents from for example the secretary. Then he may wish to send the documents to his non-executive managing directors in other parts of the world (or locally) using e-mail software. Then he could read the report and a video conference (video visual meeting) could be set-up.

Improved methods of tasks – Due to the use of ICT, many tasks have been replaced by computer processes. For example in the old system a worker would have to be employed to address, write and send mail to all customers concerned (which may be thousands if it is advertising) in the new system thousands of letters can be written, individually named and addressed and sent to a remote queuing system where all letters will be printed and sent.

Many other tasks such as improved printing speed, more machinery, networks; work sharing, etc have all been improved a lot, to increase efficiency. Every year the efficiency and profit increases as technology levels increase.

Advertising – ICT is also used when advertising and current promotions are put on the supermarket web site. This is cheaper than advertising on the television. They also send e-mails to customers telling them about various special offers, they would get customers e-mail addresses from those who have loyalty cards. On Sainsbury’s computers they have databases on everything that each individual customer purchases so they send them offers on a thing that interests them. The disadvantage of this is that customers just see it as junk mail and delete it with out reading it.

Stock control – Computers have changed the way in which Sainsbury’s operate. When looking at how Sainsbury’s order stock, it is done electronically. They have a system called EPOS, which tells them when stock, gets below a certain level. This is determined by how many times the item is scanned through the checkouts. Then computers automatically order more. This has huge advantages like it saves time and money. The disadvantage of this is that problems could arise if items are not scanned through the checkouts properly.

E-mail – The use of e-mail within supermarkets means that their systems are efficient and quick. E-mail means that they are able to communicate better with the rest of the business and are able to pass on jobs and ideas to each other with no difficulty. E-mail is vitally important for the productivity of the business and making sure jobs are done quickly and that everyone involved knows what’s going on. They can be used to send important job briefs or small notes. The main advantage is that they are instant. This means that the person who they are sending the mail is going to receive it instantly and without any worries that it is going to get lost. Without this Sainsbury’s would be far less efficient and decisions and jobs would be done much slower.

ICT has made it a lot of jobs easier and quicker for Sainsbury’s. Groceries are all scanned electronically, weekly rotas are constructed by computers, holidays are allocated by computer, and profits for each day are kept on file and employees clock in and out electronically. As you can see Sainsbury rely on ICT hugely to operate.

Rural Areas

On the other hand there are those users who have no access to computers or Internet. This can be due to several reasons such as not being able to afford a computer or not being educated to use I.T systems. There are those parents who will keep a computer but will not have Internet due to the negative side of the Internet. Therefore the effect of this is that people who will apply for a job will find it more difficult to get a job than those who are familiar with computers. This is because computers are used everywhere in almost every business for a lot of things such as communicating via e-mail, ordering stock (stock control) etc. Also in retail businesses like John Lewis you have to you use advanced cashiers (SASU tills) and these obviously require fundamental skills of using the system.

Another reason why people may not have computer access is because in rural areas people are not familiar with the latest technology due to their not being that much of a need for I.T in countryside areas and so people become ignorant of I.T use. Then again there are those who do use computers in rural areas but may not have a good Internet connection like dial up instead of broadband that is currently being used widely. This is because there isn’t a high demand for broadband in such areas so the service providers can’t meet the needs of the individuals.

Affect of I.C.T on natural disasters

Due to the advancement of technology it is now possible to know what the weather will be like for the following week or so. Also you can find out whether a natural disaster is about to take place such as detecting signals for hurricanes. This is really advantageous and quite a relief because the people can act quick and survive the disaster if they know where or when it will take place.

Conclusion

Therefore I deduce that electronics are very important for all users and the information it provides us is very useful in all aspects depending on what you are searching for. Those who do not have access to I.C.T are missing out on a lot because I.C.T can even be used for minor issues like regular updates on news or air-flights (if the person does not have access to a television. But overall electronic information has a big impact because students who need to do research will find it much easier as all the information needed will be in one source on the internet so its just a matter of finding it as compared to going to libraries, picking the correct books and then finding the information relevant to you.

Bibliography

http://www.cpbf.demon.co.uk/euroway.htm

http://www.iee.org/Policy/Areas/it/ICT/synopsis.cfm?PrintVersion=true