The Computer and Communication Technology - Case Study Example

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – its Social and Economic impact Section Number of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – its Social and Economic Impact Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an all-pervasive scientific field that has revolutionized the way people live, the way they work and even the way they relax, play and have fun. ICT has pervaded all walks of life and work. ICT has, in fact, become an integral and indispensable part of life. The computer and communication technology, the coming of the digital age, has put life on the fast track, cutting down on process time, bringing in greater efficiency and assuring higher reliability. ICT has cut across social and economic barriers to reach its benefits to the poorest of the poor and the most backward and underdeveloped. In less than a quarter of a century, ICT has changed the world for the better. There can be no doubt that ICT is the single most important scientific field in the world of today. The objective of this paper is to establish Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as the most important scientific filed in the world today by virtue of its social and economical impact on various areas of life and in different parts of the world. ICT is derived from the original term Information Technology (IT) which is defined by the Information Technology Association of America as: “The study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." In short, IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve information, securely.” (Wikipedia) Information Technology was therefore computer and communication technologies put together. The term ‘Communication Technology’ here, refers to communication achieved through computers either in the form of Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN) or through computer-based satellite-communication networks. As IT found wider applicability and scope, and as more and more analogue signals began to be converted to digital, a whole new range of common gadgets of communication technologies such as the telephone and the television fell within the ambit of IT. IT itself could no longer be simply restricted to Information Technology and had to be re-christened Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by the incorporation of the ubiquitous ‘Communications’ into its nomenclature, more so because of the wide range of multimedia applications that IT lend itself to. ICT is credited to have ushered in the ‘Digital Era’. A whole new culture – global in perspective – the ICT Culture has swept across the world. The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) or the Web, which are themselves progenies of ICT, have carried this new science practically to every nook and corner of the world. ICT has been a global phenomenon in the real sense of the term because of its great ease of applicability. This is because unlike other sciences and technologies ICT does not require much in terms of infrastructure investments. There is no building of heavy industrial structures, no requirement of bulky raw material which could be difficult to transport if not available locally, and most important of all no need of a local market. ICT can easily transcend geographical barriers which conventional technologies could not. ICT has reached the remotest corners of the world and connected them with the rest of the globe; it has shrunk distances and transformed the world into a Global Village. e-Commerce has turned the world into a single market place which both buyers and sellers can easily access through the Internet and the Web. The overall social and economic impacts of ICT can be gauged from the new types of social and economic organizations and institutions that it has fostered and from the approaches to social and political development that have been made possible by the application of ICT. Social Impact of ICT A science that pervades almost every walk of life is bound to have social ramifications. The community Information Centre (CIC) project in the developing country of India serves as a very good example. Under this project, the Government of India had set up 487 Community Information Centers in the remote north-eastern part of the country – a region that had lagged behind the rest of the country in development due to its tough geographical terrain and the resultant inaccessibility, and lack of raw materials and resources for the development of conventional industries. Each of the CICs were equipped with the latest in ICT infrastructure comprising computer systems and peripherals such as printers and scanners, power back-up systems such as generator sets and Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems and were provided network connectivity through satellite-based Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs). The CICs opened up the whole world for the hitherto isolated people of the region. In their five years of existence the CICs have achieved significant popularity. They started with conducting training programs on ICT usage for the people. Once the people came to know how to utilize various ICT facilities and services, they began flocking to the CICs. They began to interact with people from other parts of India, they began trading on the Internet, and they contacted reputed medical institutions in various other parts of India for treatment of their ailments. Slowly but surely, a bridge was built between this almost disjointed part of the country and what is known as the ‘mainstream’ India. (CIC Website) The government, on its part, has begun to take new initiatives in delivering Government-to-Citizen (G2C) services to the people of the region through the CICs. The CICs have also started to function as effective e-Governance delivery nodes. Various government services such as issue of land documents, death and birth certificates, payment of taxes, etc. are now being provided through the CICs. The CICs have also become centers of leaning and education. ICT services such as tele-broadcasting make it possible for study courses and classes to be delivered live over the network. Leading educational institutions of the country are running both short and long-term online courses on different subjects over the CIC network. Students are even appearing for online examinations right from the CICs. Al these have gone a long way in bringing about social change in the societies of the dominantly tribal region. Features of globalization, in their very nascent stages, are already visible in the region. The CIC experiment has been so successful in the country that it has been extended to other similar regions. From the above example it is clear that the ICT has had profound impact on the interaction level and range, education, health, agriculture, employment, access to information and knowledge and on the society as a whole. The social impact of ICT can be classified into two categories. On one hand, ICT can be used to support people and deliver services and subsidies, and on the other hand ICT have the potential to empower peoples participation in the economic, social, political and cultural realm. The first mechanism refers to benefits deriving from the ability to draw on ICT mediated interaction with government and public services, while the second mechanism is about benefits deriving from the ability to use ICT, whether in a productive process, i.e. at work, or in participation in social, political and cultural life. (Husing, 2004, p. 27). ICT can therefore enhance social status or bridge social divides in the following ways: i. Employability is significantly enhanced by the acquisition of ICT skills ii. ICT can contribute to acquirement of other skills raising employability. iii. ICT enhances access to education and knowledge. iv. ICT can be used to provide information on employment markets. v. ICT can be utilized to avail public services better. vi. ICT provides better access to health care vii. ICT can be used to strengthen and build communities and social networks. viii. ICT can lead to increased political participation. Building of social communities and networks assumes high importance in the social context. The concept of community itself has undergone changes due to the advent of ICT. Social networks and geographically distributed communities are now more the order of the day. Social networks are the foundation of personal and business interaction. They define who people communicate with and how. Wellman et al. (2002) argue that social networks are changing in current society. This transformation follows revolutions in technology that have resulted in a move from densely knit and tightly-bound networks (with geographic ties) to sparsely-knit and loosely-bound networks. Underlying this shift is the nature of the World Wide Web itself as a network of networks. These changes have vast implications for how people relate to each other and to institutions. (Discussion Paper, 2005, p. 28) Literature on Development Theory (Cummings, Heeks & Huysman 2003, p. 4 -5) defines four types of ICT enabled communities: i. Communities of Practice which form to share knowledge. ii. Communities of Purpose which forms over a particular issue or common cause. iii. Communities of Circumstances which forms over a similar life issue, happening or circumstance rather than a common profession. iv. Communities of Interest that forms over common personal interests or hobbies. The social potential of ICT was realized as early as 1999. In a paper titled A Strategic Framework for the Information Economy, Canberra, the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) had commented on the social implications of increased connectivity thus: “Perhaps the most exciting feature of this increased connectivity is its potential to act as a catalyst for greater social interaction and community participation. Online technologies can have a direct role in enhancing community well being. They can provide better links across the local community while at the same time enabling access to wider national and international resources. Existing social infrastructure – schools, hospitals, public libraries, local councils – can be strengthened. Online capacity can help to stimulate and reinvigorate both local communities and communities of interest.” (NOIE 1999) Economic Impact ICT is a catalyst for economic growth. This was convincingly proved by the revival of the economy of the United States in the late Nineties due to large investments in ICT (Stiroh, 2002). It has already been acknowledged that ICT capital is more effective in inducing economic growth than non-ICT capital. A higher level of ICT capital stock per capita allows a typical economy to achieve a higher growth rate for given levels of growth in labor and capital inputs (Vu, 2004). A country experiences economic growth when it can produce more goods and services within a given period of time. The use of ICT cuts down drastically on production and service time leading to a resultant increase in rate of production of goods and provision of services. This leads to a proportionate economic growth. Growth can occur in two different ways; the increased use of land, labour, capital and entrepreneurial resources by using better technology or management techniques and increased productivity of existing resource use through rising labour and capital productivity (Miles, 2001). ICT therefore plays a key role as a promoter of growth as it provides both the technology and the management techniques for better use resources. The wide and diverse applicability of ICT makes it relevant to practically all fields and work areas which affect economic growth. Another way in which ICT boosts economic growth is by providing increased mobility. It has always been held that economic growth is closely associated with the distances that people are able to travel. The wider the range of movement of people, the greater the economic activity, and the higher the economic growth. ICT has provided virtual mobility to people by shrinking distances. This has enabled citizens of the Net to be involved in greater economic activity without physically venturing out of their homes or offices. Lake (2004) sums it up thus: “Increasingly ICT are becoming pivotal for economic growth. By enabling "virtual mobility", ICT provide the means to undertake many of the activities that have so far needed physical transport” During the latter half of the 1990s it was not only the US but also some countries of the European Union such as Ireland, Netherlands and Finland as well as other Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries such as Australia and Canada, which were able to achieve resurgence of economic growth and productivity, steady or declining inflation and diminishing unemployment through the deployment of ICT. (Commission of European Community, 2001) The economic impact of ICT has been felt in developing countries such as Malaysia also. In Malaysia, productivity in both the manufacturing and service sectors showed remarkable increase during the 1990s as compared to the 1980s primarily due to the increase in application of ICT in both the sectors. India and China also took maximum advantage of ICT to boost their economies. So much so, that both these countries are now projected as future economic superpowers primarily due to their superiority in ICT development and applicability especially in the software sector. It has also been effectively demonstrated in the United Kingdoms that the real output growth is directly proportional to the contribution of ICT. In the UK, between 1990 and 1995, the Real Output Growth was 2.12 corresponding to an ICT contribution of 0.43 percentage of the economic growth; whereas between 1995 and 1999, the Real Output Growth was 3.48 corresponding to a 0.47 percentage contribution of ICT to economic growth. Therefore, it is convincingly proved that ICT not only drives the economy but also that effective ICT investments do have a positive impact on the economy. Conclusion: The steam engine, patented by James Watt in 1769, had a profound accelerating effect on the British economy. In many ways, steam is considered to have driven the world towards the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire to the zenith of its power. Yet, when the impact of steam is compared with that of ICT, it is found that even by the late 1990s, ICT’s annual impact had been about four times stronger than the annual impact of steam when it was at its peak. (Crafts, 2004). The power of ICT is indefinite. Nevertheless as the world surges ahead riding on the ICT wave, proper attention will have to be given to possible negative impacts. Globalisation could lead to economic exploitation by the powerful; it could also result in the wiping out of valuable individual socio-cultural identities. A world without variety would be a very dull one indeed. However, there is no contesting the claim that the ride to the future is powered by ICT. ICT will mould the social, economical, cultural and political shape of the future. References 1. CIC Website. http://www.cic.nic.in 2. Commission of the European Communities, 2001. The Impact of the e-economy on European Enterprises: Economic Analysis and Policy Implications. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament. Brussels, 29.11.2001. http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/com_2001_711_en.pdf 3. Crafts, N., 2004. The Economic Impact of ICT: a Perspective from the Age of Steam. The Esmée Fairbairn Lecture delivered at Lancaster University on November 18, 2004. 4. Discussion Paper, 2005, p. 28. The role of ICT in Building Communities and Social Capital. Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Government of Australia 5. Husing, Tobius, November 2004.The Impact of ICT on Social Cohesion: Looking beyond the Digital Divide. European Commission, Directorate General, Joint Research Centre, Technical Report EUR 21474 EN 6. Lake, A., 2004. Time, mobility and economic growth. Flexibility. http://www.flexibility.co.uk/issues/transport/time-mobility.htm 7. Miles, P., 2001 Globalisation- Economic Growth and Development and Development Indicators. Planet Papers. http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/4302.php 8. National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), 1999. A Strategic Framework for the Information Economy, Canberra. http://www.dcita.gov.au/ie/publications/1998/12/framework 9. Stiroh, Kevin J., 2002. Are ICT Spillovers Driving the New Economy? Review of Income and Wealth. Series 48, No 1, March 2002. http://center.uvt.nl/staff/smulders/gtlit/stiroh2002.pdf 10. Vu, K., 2004. ICT and Global Economic Growth. Job Market Paper. [Online]. http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/cbg/ptep/khuongvu/Job%20Market%20Paper.pdf 11. Wellman, B, Quan-Haase, A, Boase, J & Chen, W 2002.Examining the Internet in everyday Life. Euricom Conference on e-Democracy. October 2002, Nijmegen, Netherlands. http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/-wellman/publications/euricom/Examinig-Euricom.htm 12. Wikipedia, Information Technology, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology Read More