Communicating in the IT Industry Lecture 9: Understand the Impact of IT on Individuals, Communities and Society Zatil Ridh'wah Hj Darot

Learning objectives Impacts: Social Economic Legal Ethical

Social Impacts How we spend our free time During the 1980s and 1990s children and young people spent a lot of their free time watching television. Today, although television remains a popular pastime, many young people spend more time on the Internet, using social networking sites, instant messenger applications and playing ____________.

Effects on local communities With so much information and goods and services available online, some traditional facilities, such as village shops, have experienced a ________ in customers to the extent that their continued presence in the community is no longer necessary or economically viable. This can have a negative effect on local communities, in that there is a less diverse range of shops for local people to enjoy.

Economic Impacts Employment structure and working practices IT has changed the nature of work in many professions. Examples of jobs which have been ________ by IT include administrators who used to keep paper-based records and typists who typed letters on a typewriter. IT has also created many new jobs and IT skills are now required by almost every job. With Internet access widely available, people can communicate and work away from the office, so home working is now a popular option for many employees.

Sustainability Computers use electricity and, with so many in use in homes and businesses, they make a significant contribution to energy consumption and related issues such as climate change. Furthermore, with computer hardware developing rapidly, there is the problem of how to deal with ____________ that is no longer required.

The disposal of unwanted electrical equipment (not just computers) is covered by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive, 2007). By these regulations, manufacturers of electrical equipment are required to provide users who purchase a new piece of ___________with a method of disposing of the equipment that their purchase is replacing.

Legal impacts Ownership, copyright and plagiarism Copyright law protects people who produce their own original work (such as books, songs and films). With music and films available to be downloaded over the Internet, it has become ____________ material in copyright. Many file sharing web services have been set up which allow users to share copyrighted material, particularly films, making it freely available. (For more on copyright, see Unit 4 Business IT skills, pages 000–000.)

The Internet makes it very easy to copy and paste materials from a web page into a document. __________ is a common problem in assignment work submitted by learners in schools, colleges and universities. Quoting other people’s work is fine as long as you acknowledge the source of the information, but passing off other people’s work as your own is not allowed.

Ethical Impacts Privacy of information With so much personal information kept on computers, personal privacy has become an issue. Almost every aspect of your life is recorded on a computer, including your medical records, what you buy at the supermarket, who you call on your mobile and what you _________engines such as Google. Personal information relating to living individuals held on computers is covered by the Data Protection Act (1998).