No. 3 - Computers in our World, Today (part 1)

All this is just another result of the industrial revolution, over 100 years ago. Casting back your mind to the 1700s - everyone worked on farms, and lived on manors working for the local Baron or whatever. When, one day, some bloke called Jethro Tull was sitting on a bag of peat and was watching everyone else planting turnips in rows. It was a tedious job.

He saw them all toiling away in the sun and wondered why the good Lord let everyone do so much work for the little pay they recieved. Suddenly he had a brainwave. If he could invent a machine to do the job for everyone, then more turnips would get planted, everyone would have to do less work, and the Baron got richer for selling more turnips. Besides, all this machine had to do was drop seeds in a row.

So he invented the world's first turnip-planter, and began the industrial revolution.

By the start of this century, Great Britain had established itself as one of the greatest countries in the world. She had an empire, the largest navy, and was stinking rich. All because of humble Mr. Tull, other farms gradually competed with each other, each inventing bigger and better machines to do the job faster and more efficiently. When the factory appeared, production was maximized. When there were hundreds of factories, they needed offices to handle with administration etc.

So then we were back to square 1. Jethro Tull's great great grandson was buried under a pile of paper work when he thought; "If I could invent a machine to do this job..." The need to transfer information quickly and efficiently was born.

Now, we have the internet, mobile phones, fax, satellites and digital TV.

But because alternative methods were found to do the paperwork, there was no need to employ people anymore. There has been a great deal of debate as to whether computers are the ultimate saviour to the workplace, or its bane.

I drew up a list of points outlining the arguements for and against the motion: "Is computers in the workplace a good idea?"

	FOR		AGAINST
	The jobs being "replaced" are boring and tedious ones. It gives people the oppertunity to do other things.		Replacing humans with computers causes unemployment.
	You can produce a higher yeild of work in less time		Life without computers would be slower, less stressful.
	There are new jobs being created by I.T. e.g. Programming, Systems Admin etc.		The "new jobs" created by I.T. need highly qualified and skilled people
	Some tasks would be impossible without I.T. - Medical research, Space travel, credit cards etc.		There is a big price tag attached to keeping up with new technologies and implementing them.
	Its too late to stop using computers. As other companies use it, if we were to stop we would be out-competed.		There is always a chance of people's privacy being invaded whilst storing information on computer.

My opinion? Well I would say that I.T. in the workplace was a healthy part of development. True, the new jobs being created are for the highly skilled, but since the start of the information age university applicants has increased, the workforce has increased, unemployment has decreased and our exports have risen. (Just ignoring recent developments - they are to do with lack of investment, not I.T.) I got this following story off an IBM poster promoting I.T. and dispelling myths about I.T.

Two men were watching a mechanical excavator on a building site. "If it wasn't for that machine", said one, "twelve men with shovels could be doing that job".
"Yes", said the other man, "and if wasn't for your twelve shovels, two hundred men with teaspoons could be doing that job"

Conclusion

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