Computers and Society

Frog and Water

• We tend to overlook the gradual changes around us, so fail to react in time to the threats that are in, as in the story of frog and boiling water.

Impacts by Design vs. Impacts not by Design

• Impacts by design are the intended functions of designers of applications.– ATM and credit card over the world– Shopping online

• Impacts not by design refer to the uses of applications which are not intended by the original designers.– People’s whereabouts, commercial behavior,

and political views can be traced.

Categories of Impacts

• Quality of life – Work life and social life

• Security – Computer crimes

• Privacy

• Ethics

Areas of Impacts

• Business

• Communication

• Education

• Warfare

• Medicine

• Art and music

• The Handicapped

Two Articles

• J. F. George, “Introduction to the Social Issues of Computing”.– On the impacts and issues at present.

• Ray Kurzweil, “The Impact On …”.– On the impacts and issues in the future.

Computer and Society- 1 -

Past and Present

Social Issues of ComputingPast and Present

• J. F. George, “Introduction to the Social Issues of Computing”, 2003

Computing and Social Issues

• It is FALSE to say:

“Computing has no relationship at all to the issues like homeless, poverty, hunger, and world peace.”

• We should not be as unawareness of the professor mentioned at the beginning of article about the impact of computing on society.

Employment

• An issue we are familiar with.

• Some old jobs are replaced; some new jobs are created.

• “The promised cost savings by office automations were rarely realized, because …” (p.8) How do we understand this?

Sacrificing for Offspring?

• For most of jobs displaced in the past 200 years, they caused pain on those who were displaced, but not on their offspring like us. We even rarely appreciated our ancestors for their sacrifices that lead to today’s convenience and ‘civilization’.

• Why do we complain today for our ‘sacrifices’ that might be beneficial for our offspring?

Deskilling and Upskilling

• Deskilling is the effect as the skills needed to do the job originally have been removed by the replaced computers, and jobs are of lesser interest and challenge.

• Upskilling refers to the effects as jobs are more interesting and challenging, and less tedious and repetitive.

Deskilling or Upskilling?

• In a debate-stopping article, 1987, Attewell reported that there were about as much deskilling in automated jobs as upskilling, but that upskilling had the upper hand. Computing, then, seems to make work a little more interesting.

Quality of Work Life

• Measures of Work Life:– Physically dangerous or not– Work pace– Clean air and workplace– Illumination– Dirty looks of managers– Performance monitoring

• The other side of the coin:– Employment rate and salary

Surveillance

• Many companies routinely monitor how professional workers use their e-mail and the Internet while at work.

• White collar workers feel the threat of surveillance, including managers, professionals, and specialists, in addition to clerical workers.

Ubiquity of Computing

• Devices causing ubiquity of computing include:– Laptop computer– Cell phone– Personal digital assistants

• Those devices make it possible for people to work wherever they are at whatever time.

Concern of Ubiquity of Computing

• The concern of ubiquity of computing:– It blurs the line between work and home,– It creates additional stress in white collar jobs,– It increases the pace of work as well.– It deteriorates the quality of work life.

Organizational Structure

• Computers and Internet would make organizations centralized or decentralized.

• Is computing tech altering organizations or organizations are altering computing tech?

Technological Elite

• Tech Elite refers to the few talented people who design and build computer system of an organization.

• It was feared that these tech elite would take on a special privileged role in the organization and would have undue influence in the organization’s affairs.

Privacy

• Privacy was, is, and will be a central issue in the relationship between computing and society.

• Privacy is threatened by computers because computers unprecedented capacity of:– Collecting data,– Processing data, – Disseminating data.

Surveillance and Privacy

• It is legal in US for the company to monitor the employee’s use of company-owned equipment and network for e-mail and Internet surfing and access.

• How about company owned laptops and cell phones being used at home?

Computer Trailing

• When a person goes online, automatically he leaves behind a trail showing where he has gone and how long he stays.

• The trail can be used for characterize a person for business, political, or whatever use.

Computer Trailing vs. Privacy

• Do you think computer trailing is against Privacy Act?

• Is it against law if someone uses your trails left at public places such as a shop, a bookstore, and street?

• Is Internet a public or a private occasion?

Security

• The security issue refers to the threat that your computer system is attacked online.

• Can breaking into your computer be compared legally to breaking into your house?

• When you have a high-speed direct connection to Internet, you expose your system to the Internet hackers and computer viruses.

Hacking Tools Available at Internet

• Internet becomes an exchange market for hacking tools.

• Internet provides a meeting place for hackers and crackers to exchange information.

• This is an issue related to online freedom of speech.

Degradation of Social Life

• How computer and Internet may change our social life?– More time online, less time physically with

family and friends, less time playing sports, less conversations.

– People are getting into deeper into the virtual world, and less capable to function in the real world.

An Example of ipod

• Article “Tune into Your World, Tune out All Others”

• By Linda Shrieves, <The Orlando Sentinel>

• See <The Press of Atlantic City>, 1/24/2006, p.B1

Why Do People Love iPod?

• It tunes out the ‘noises’ we prefer to close off.

• “It’s healthy to decompress yourself when you live in a chaotic, densely populated world.”

• “It helps people relieve stress or, particularly at work, concentrate.”

Does iPod Tune Out Too Much?

• It’s a brushoff or snub, though maybe not intended. – ‘Technological insulation’.

• “Your day can be filled up with these short contacts with people (greetings or short talks) you see regularly. People who don’t have that are really missing something.”

• “It’s not helping us with social skills.”

Digital Divides• Digital divide refers to differences in the

availability of computing, especially in terms of Internet access, between two different groups in a society

• Examples of digital divides addressed so far:– Between young and old– Between races– Between poor and rich– Between developed countries and developing

countries.

Freedom of Speech Online

• Are the following expressions online protected by the freedom of speech:– Whipping up racism, hatred, violence,

terrorism, fascism, …

• Is a private web site “private” or “public”?

Computer and Society

Present and Future(see Part 2)