Information Technology in Various Countries - Essay Example

?Information technology in various countries The present generation of the 21st century has been ushered with the latest information technologies. The new information system has revolutionized the society. The emergence of the information society is guided by the information communication and the technology. Information technology has a huge role to play in the overall transformation of the culture in the larger part of the civilized world. The modern society has been extensively dependent on the society and has a tremendous impact in each and every sector of the world economy. It has direct influence in the daily lives of the people. The collapse of the information technology will endanger the existence of the society. Implementation of technology has been in varied extent in different countries. The human development statistical table provides a whole view of the development made by the countries based on certain parameters. One such parameter involves the access to information system and communication technology. The parameter to information system comprises of certain element like number of mobile and fixed line telephone subscription, the total percentage of population covered by the mobile phone networks , the total percentage of the broadband subscriptions and the number of the users of the Internet (“Human development Statistical table, n. d). The statistical table of human development of the year 2010 reflects that countries ranked with higher human development index have a better percentage of the users of internet. Countries like Norway, Netherlands and the United states which are ranked as 1, 7 and 4 respectively have higher number of users of the internet facility. Whereas the countries ranked lower according to the human development index signifies that their rate of computer usage is very low. In countries like Chile, Mexico and Romania this significant trend is noted. Among the three countries with low usage Mexico has only 22% of the users which is lowest among them. The total number of subscription in Mexico has been considerably very low with only 7 percent as accounted in the report. The overall standing of Chile, Mexico and Romania are 53, 64 and 50. (“Human development Statistical table, n. d) The above discussion shows that the adoption of technology has been a crucial indicator of the overall development of the society and it impacts significantly in the growth of the societies. Modern Technology polluting the world The use of gadgets has significantly increased over the last decade with the latest innovation in technology. Modern technology has gained colossal achievement and has become a part of the lifestyle of every people in the developed and the developing countries. The modern technology is been publicized and will continue to do so with aging of time. Apart from the positive benefits which technology has brought in this era it has also marked some negative impact on the societies. Advancement in technology has greatly affected some business industries severely and has even led to the shutting down of certain segments of the business. The overall advancement in technology has facilitated the communication system. Other than the conventional mobile phone, people have formed virtual groups and communities over the web space and interact with each other. This has seriously affected the communities which existed in real in different societies and has constantly threatened their existence. Modern technology has stopped the personal interaction between the people due to the overall popularity of the social networking sites like facebook, twitter and orkut. Such modes have acted as a barrier to the age old traditional face to face communication. The overall impact of technology on the society has been alarming and has turned the people to be lazier and has desensitized the society. The lesser amount of personal interaction between the people has resulted in making them less affectionate towards the human society. The general interaction between the people leads to higher perception regarding the human values and the understanding of the human self. However this value seems to degrade with the latest innovations as humans have become technology centric (Dubey, 2008, p. 94). The rise in technology has also put the human existence in threat. Countries are resorting to the higher use of technological weapons with an aim to provide more security to their nations. The latest nuclear weapons are powered enough to destroy a civilization. Improper use of technology has led to the growing number of terrorist activity over various nations and the massacre caused in America in 9/11 and its aftermath is one of the latest examples. The increase in cyber crime throughout the world has also been a rising concern. Cyber crimes not only lead to disclose of personal information and loss of confidentiality over the net, but the internet has been used as a trigger to carry out major explosions in various corners of the world. The advancement in technology has massive implication on the environment and is affecting the environment sustainability to a large extent. On the context of the negative impact of technology on the society, technological society technological society is characterized by the presence of environmental pollution, deterioration in the quality of the life lead by the humans and ecological imbalance. Technology has been held as responsible for causing social and psychological imbalance as the life has become much more mechanized. (Dubey, 2008, p.94) The growth of certain industry have hampered significantly because of the technology up-gradation. Sectors like music have hampered in a vast way as people have the option for the free download of the music files from various websites and the sell of the music albums have decreased considerably over the years. Another industry which has one of the worst effects is that of the newspaper and the magazine industry. Most people access the vital information through the help of the online sites and thus the distribution of the small sized magazines and newspapers have taken a setback. Considering the education sector as a part of the society, it has had its negative implication as well. Though the internets act as a rich database for the source of information, still it affects the knowledge growth of the students’ considerably. Students take the help of the online solutions without gaining a transparent idea of the subjects which does not appear to be beneficial for the future prospect of the student community and also regarding the growth of the nation. Though the benefits received from the use of technology cannot be ignored but the controlled and proper use is suggested. If the rate of technology adaptation continues in such an extent, human beings will eventually turn up to behave like machines and the whole existence of the mankind will be at the sake of technology. IT is detrimental to education The internet has a huge depository of information and contains information from every domain. Considering such aspects of the internet it can be concluded that information technology has a huge positive role to play in the field of education. But the recent trends and study reflect that the improper use of the information technology has resulted in the fall in standards of the students. The excessive usage and the dependence on the information technology are harmful for the education sector. Most of the educational institutes from all over the Britain use various technological tools to aid the students with a better learning. The use of e-tools actually prevents the students from gaining a practical exposure of the knowledge. Prevention from the practical exposure of the knowledge acts as a barrier in having transparency over the concepts in the subjects. Studies in the United States suggest that the rapid introduction of technology in education sector should be accompanied by the proper integration and the technical support for gaining the results. Proper environment needs to be set for the technological implementation to be successful. Researches conducted suggest that incorporation of technology in the education sector has led to poorer results. The overall decline of reading habits among the students is a critical matter of students (Balanskat, et al, 2006). Conventional modes of study increase the imagination power and the critical thinking capability among the students. Students without the facility of the internet connection in their class room performed better than those with the connection. The reason cited for such difference was that the students with internet connection could not focus their attention during the lectures. However in the higher levels of the study researchers confer that there is a positive impact on the use of communication technology in the overall education sectors .Research conducted to find the impact of the information and communication technology in schools of Europe suggest that it has a considerable amount of positive impact on the performance of the students. The result reflected that online tools help the students in gaining considerable knowledge in English but the effect is not so prominent with mathematics and science subjects. The use of the online facility helps to motivate the students to a large extent and also has a positive effect on their behavior, communication skills and the process skills. The use of internet also provides the students with an opportunity to learn independently and does not face any behavioral difficulty in the future. The internet also creates a certain level of enthusiasm among the students and they find the visual tools more appealing and get further interest in the study (Balanskat, et al, 2006). In matters relating to higher studies and research, internet plays the most crucial role and such studies could not be carried out without the existence of the internet. Internet provides the option of flexible learning and the variety of information it has in its store is really encouraging for the key learners and indeed can flourish them with further learning opportunities. The government in the United Kingdom has incorporated policies to strengthen the higher education system with the help of implementing technology enhanced learning and has spend considerably towards such ventures. The above section discusses both the aspects of the information technology and its effect on education. Studies reveal that in spite of the various drawback of the information technology on education the positive results are many and appears quite beneficial to the study. As education deals with knowledge, opportunity of exposure to wide range of information is promoted and internet appears to be the only source of such a large database. The notion that IT is detrimental for the education cannot be supported. However the proper usage of IT could really gain much more benefit for the education sector in whole. Measures should be incorporated to promote the further use of IT in education. The global spread of knowledge is truly beneficial for the world in its rapid progress. References Balanskat, A, et al, (2006), The ICT Impact Report, EUROPA, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/education/pdf/doc254_en.pdf (accessed on November 16, 2011) Dubey, A. P, (2008), Modernity and the Problem of Cultural Identity, New Delhi: Northern Book Centre Human development statistical tables, (n. d), UNDP, available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Tables_reprint.pdf (accessed on November 16, 2011) Read More