The Impact of Computers on Society Today

Computers have made such an enormous impact on our society today. There isn’t a place where you can turn where there isn’t a computer involved. In the present time, most businesses rely on computers and it’s similar technology. This field of technology has been so advanced within the past few years that it has been the primary tool in successful businesses. Not only does it make daily annoying tasks easy with a click of a button, it also makes traveling to the moon simpler. To think that we lived in this society for so many years without the use of computers is unbelievable.

The uses of computers can range from hundreds to billions of things. Not only is it useful for the word processing programs to do homework, it can be used to hold an unimaginable amount of data. It can also regulate commerce, and even communicate to numerous amounts of people halfway around the world in a matter of seconds, only for the price of one phone call. This technology has been so far advanced that every large corporation is using it. Computers are an inexpensive investment for the convenience of the opportunities that it can give the investor. These tools allow us to look for jobs online, learn various things, do research, go shopping, or even buy stocks. Besides the large computers, new technology has made PDA’s possible.

Palm pilots are one of the hottest items out there. Not only can you use it as an organizer, you can also use to send email, download books to read, save a hundred and one recipes for cocktails, you can even play games. Many business people own one for the convenience of having a miniature computer in their pocket. According to Business Week, technology has been advanced again. “Phone makers are trying to squeeze such must-have organizer features as calendars, address book, and to-do lists into your wireless phone. Handheld computer

makers want to give their pocket organizers the prowess to handle your e-mail and Web surfing, and even your ordinary voice calls” (98).

It is amazing how computers have effected how we live today. Even getting a fare for the subway train requires a computer. Tokens are hardly used now. Instead metro cards are in popular demand. These cards all hold data that was placed within them with a computer. Not only is the subway effected by computers, so are hospitals. They keep all patient files within their database. This allows them to retrieve a patient’s record in the most time efficient manner, without having to deal with the messy paper work. Also, e-commerce has been very successful in the past few years. This allows people who do not have time to shop, to just log on to a server and surf the stores that are available online. This beats the lines during Christmas as well. Because of the invention of the internet, it has also opened an enormous amount of employment positions, thus improving our economy.

“Someday soon you’ll be able to choose an operating system that configures your hardware for your. Connecting you to the Internet will take three clicks, tops” (PC Computing 181). Doesn’t this all sound familiar? This article is in regard to Windows 2000, which was published in December 1998. At that time, everyone was excited about this new software which seems too good to be true. Today, we don’t even acknowledge the fact of how convenient it is for us to retrieve information in our computers due to this simply program. Our computer technology has advanced an incredible amount each year. Hopefully this advancement will slow down a little so our economy can absorb its success. If this technology continues to soar at the rate it is at, it may lead this country in to a second depression.

Computers are now a necessity in businesses, homes, and schools. It is an ideal tool for learning, teaching, working, organizing, and even communicating. Without computers, our society, commerce, and economy will not be advancing at the speed that it is now. We depend a lot on computers and if it were to fail us, we would all be in a major dilemma. I don’t believe that our society should depend such a great deal on computers due to the possibility that it may fail us one day. Our society will be at a stand still and panic will definitely occur. But a life without computers seems to be unimaginable to me.