Evaluate (which means describe, give some advantages and disadavantages, give practical examples, describe limitations and strengths, give your opinion and suggest any solutions) the tasks assigned. Post your responses in the blog and question the responses of the others. Ensure that everything is your own research and all your referenced sources are provided at the end. (the work will be assessed)
Atiya
What are some of psychological consequences of people being in permanent contact
Gary
the ethical considerations of control as a result of using communications technologies.
Sajni
the social impacts on health of the use of mobile devices.
Terry
the effects on personal productivity of personal communication devices
Immaculate
the social effects of telecommuting
Nafisa
the social effects of widespread use of teleconferencing and video conferencing.
Tasin
the social impact and the ethical considerations of : Distance learning and digital entertainment
Salima
the social impact and ethical conderations of : global media and public information systems.
Rishad
the social and environmental impact and ethical considerations of telecommuting.
12 comments:
There are several social effects of the widespread use of teleconferencing and video conferencing. These include the following:
(a)Control- this technology will take over people’s lives and businesses until the human population is solemnly dependent on it. therefore, if either the IT components of teleconferencing or video conferencing seize to function or even a short period of time, the entire human population will not work efficiently due to their over dependence on these.
Telecommuting:
Telecommuting is the process in which an employee is able to work from a chosen, flexible location such as home using various technologies such as telephone, fax and the internet.
The advantages for telecommuting are:
- There is a saving on cost.
For both employees and employers, they would be able to save money. For example, employees are able to save money on travelling to and from work whereas, the employers are able to save money on office overheads and labour costs.
- Increased productivity.
According to sources, there is an increase in productivity of about 40%. This is because employees are in the confort of their own home where they are able to work more efficiently.
- Organization flexability.
People are able to organize themselves according to their timings.
(more to come)
(b)Globalization and cultural diversity- a widespread use of teleconferencing and video conferencing will enable a multitude of people to communicate virtually without having to incur any expenses. This easier and more affordable worldwide means of communication will allow for different cultures and people to interact.
(c)Currently, video conferencing and teleconferencing is being used to transmit inappropriate material online. For instance, people display nudity or engage in phone sex- which is then sent to another person via the internet. According to Robert Martens, video conferencing and teleconferencing were originally aimed at providing a means of communication for people in different places from each other. Therefore, doing inappropriate activities through these technologies is in fact abusing this privilege.
(d)Equality of access- not everyone will have access to video conferencing and teleconferencing. This will mean that there will probably be a huge percentage of people in the word who will be unable to engage in this virtual communication revolution.
Some of the disadvantages of telecommuting are:
- It would be hard to supervise employees, hence empliyers would not know how the employees are coping with the work.
- Employees might take advantage of the fact that they are at home, thus, they might procastinate with their work and/or get distracted easily.
- Employees are missing out on the social aspects of work, thus it may get lonely sometimes.
- Employees might miss out on important information that are been shared out in meeting, since video conferencing may not be as good as actually being there.
- It would be difficult to develop team work since there would be no team to develop.
An examples of a job that involves telecommuting is:
- Transcription and coding.
These types of jobs are easier to do from home but they require intense training before pursuing it.
The social effects of telecommuting are:
- Reliability.
Employers would not be 100% sure that their employees are working efficiently at home.Therefore, the social issue of 'how reliable is working at home' arises.
- Equality of Access.
Not all the employees might has access to the internet at home or to video conferencing technology, thus, to get a telecommuting job, it would require the employee to have the internet, and maybe some video conferencing equipments.
- Authenticity.
Employees might pay other people to do their jobs for them whereas if they were woking in their office, it would be less likely for them to do such a thing.
The strengths of telecommuting would be the fact that it benefits the society environmentally in a way in which the more people there are working at home, the less cars would be used. Hence the more the environment benefits.
However, one of the main limitations of telecommuting is the fact that employers are not able to assess their workers and they do not have so much control in what they do compared to if they were at an office.
A possible solution to this limitation is a method in which the employees are able to monitor what their employees do. For example, employees could send in all the things that they have done daily and the employers are able observe where they have done sufficient work.
Nevertheless, the limitation to the solution would be the fact that some employees might get other people to do the work for them while they are lazying around. The work would then be submitted as their own and employers would see that they are working well.
Bibliography:
- Unknown author. 2007. Examples of telecommuting. http://www.articlesbase.com/careers-articles/examples-of-telecommuting-jobs-265380.html
- Unknown author. Unknown date. Telework (Telecommuting):
the Benefits - and some Issues.
http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/faq03.htm
- Unknown author. Unknown date. What is telecommuting. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-telecommuting.htm
Ethical considerations of control as the result of using communications technologies:
The topic makes us think of invasion of privacy, which is related with today’s technology. The phrase “communication technology” refers to phone, e-mail, fax etc. “Control” refers to a certain organization or person controlling the use of this technology. It also refers to invasion of privacy which arises from the abuse of “communication technology.” This topic basically talks about how people miss use technology to gain information about others and invading their privacy, through things such as hacking, tapping phones lines.
However hacking or tapping someone’s s phone or email account can sometimes be very important and essential for example the government can be able to gain the ability to hack our conversations and emails to monitor if any terrorists or criminal activity is going on but with legal authorization by the government. That the only advantage I can think of. Also if an email is sent talking about bombing or abusing a certain place or person it can be tracked using the IP addresses to find the source/perpetrator.
The disadvantages overweigh the advantages hacking of email accounts can be used to obtain some ones personal information such as credit card pin numbers is that email is intercepted and while they hack your email they can send nasty emails to your contact list members. Tapping of phones lines can be used to listen to private conversations. Both of these can cause some people to have stalkers. Using a cell phone a driver's concentration is diverted to the conversation with the person on the phone and can cause accidents.
A reason for all this to take place is when a relationship is under pressure. Such that one of the spouses thinks the other one is having an affair then he/she may hack their spouses email or pay some else to do the hacking for them, basically just insecurity.
I think that with all the risks people will still tend to use the technology because getting hacked is very rare unless you are famous and people want to know personal stuff about you or that they have a real personal grudge against you. As long as people do the right thing and make themselves seem as a big person so to speak they would not have to worry about getting their information taken from them. If need be people can buy and use firewalls to keep hackers out.
The social impacts on health of the use of mobile devices
Positive impacts
-doctors can be able to use the mobile phones to keep in contact with their patients. Keeping in close contact, and finding out the health or a patients improvement level is vital to the doctor. This can help him to plan his visits, or to attend to any emergency cases that may arise. Furthermore also the patient will feel well looked after (like after sale services which benefit the consumer) and more confident with their health.
-GPS systems on the mobile can also be used to track the patients’ activity and in some cases the other vital factors such as heart beat rate, or the body temperature. This allows the patient who is admitted in hospital to get discharge early as some factors can be monitored through the doctors’ phone and close proximity doesn’t remain a problem.
-incase a person is suffering from a sudden sickness than they can call a doctor for help.
- through the use of services like the m-pesa, patients can pay their doctor/hospital through this thus avoiding the need to make extra visits for payment purposes.
Negative impacts
-Through the use of mobile phones many sicknesses can be caused that limit one’s activity either physically or mentally. For example mercury poisoning, EM radiation, also recent Scientific studies shows that frequent use of mobile phones can cause Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases. And Electromagnetic fields emitted by signals used by mobile phones can also cause brain cancer (http://ezinearticles.com/?Consumer-Watch---The-Social-Impact-of-Mobile-Phones&id=3329753)
-drivers that use their mobile phones whilst driving are imposed to health risks that can occur when accidents are caused, imposing health risks on the driver and also the other drivers. Though Bluetooth technology involves the use of hands free sets, the concentration level of the driver is reduced.
-The use of mobile phones weakens your eyesight, which eventually will lead to blindness. This is a social issue as then the user will not be able to do many things she could have done with her sight (such as visit a website)!
-the use of mobile phones also weakens your hearing system through increased heat radiation, and excessive usage.
-extensive use of mobile phones can lead to R.S.I, which can limit a person’s movement. Depending on the type of phone one uses, the hand movements can be reduced to minimal (as even SMS can be done using voice commands)
This is all i have got for now, will post more later.
Limitations and Capabilities of robots in term of vision:
Limitations:
-Can only see if it’s moving
-Can’t recognize some colours
-Only sees things in a survival outlook, not on what it particularly sees.
Capabilities:
-Able to see where it’s going itself
-Can zoom into various things
-Can see through buildings and help people in dangerous situations
-Can move without human guidance
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