Civil Rights

Crime Protection

Entertainment

Education

The information age has had a huge impact on education. Due to the advancements in technology the traditional methods of teaching have been significantly altered and many classes are now filled with a variety of different educational electrical devices. Whilst this is seen by many to be a fantastic change in how humans are schooled, others would disagree and claim it to be negative influence. It is now common for schools to own computers, laptops or tablets and teach ‘IT’, meaning information technology (the study and teaching of computing skills such as spreadsheets and databases); as well as making use of various other technological devices and practises.

Registration -

Traditionally, student attendance was kept track of using pen and paper. This method was highly inconvenient as it wasted paper and made it difficult for staff members to find old incidents of absences. Nowadays many schools use electronic registration software such as SIMS, with which teachers can log which students are present and easily use search functions to access a huge database of attendance data. Software such as this can tell users exactly how many times pupils have been absent that year, how many time this was with or without permission, and may be used to store various other data such contact information, exam marks, allergies and more.

Electronic Whiteboards -

Electronic whiteboards allow teachers to make use of the internet, video, games and the various other functions of computers. These tools grant them the ability to provide a unique blend of visual, audio and interactive materials for their students in order to aid their learning. Some websites which offer these include Youtube (a popular social video sharing service: www.youtube.com), BBC Bitesize (a website created by the BBC to help students with their education via audio, video and interactive games such as quizzes: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize) and Socrative (‘a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms though a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops and tablets’: www.socrative.com).

ICT (Subject) -

Due to the increasing need for computing knowledge in the workplace, many schools have introduced ICT (meaning Information and Communication Technologies) as a subject (in many cases it has been made compulsory for students up until GCSE level, where they can choose to drop it or stay on and work for a higher qualification). The course teaches students the basics such as Microsoft Office Usage, Database and Spreadsheet skills and other basics such as video editing and simple photo manipulation. As the students’ progress, they are taught harder and more complex skills such as animation, website design and coding.

Tablets -

The rise of popularity in touch tablets such as the iPad and Google Nexus has triggered a response from education, with an increasing amount schools opting for tablets over PCs. A major reason for this being so, is that tablets are considerably cheaper than laptops and desk computers; as well as offering a convenient solution to students carrying bags full of books to school (devices such as the amazon kindle offer thousands of book downloads at cheap prices). However, I personally believe that schools should stick with desktop computers and laptop because they are easier to use for working on and offer a far broader range of programmes (such as Microsoft Powerpoint, excel, Database, Adobe Flash, Video editing software, Photoshop and more).

Spelling -

Contrasting the positives, the information age is actually having a negative effect on a massive amount of youths’ spelling and grammar. The culprits of this are mobile phones and computing devices. These devices allow their users easy access to spell correcting software, which grant people an excuse to be lazy and not fully learn the spelling of their languages. Furthermore, vast quantities of people use mobile phone slang so as to lower their overall sending charges and save time. Both of these are resulting in a dumber, lazier and more illiterate younger generation of humans (traits which are sure to be passed down, resulting in a huge loss of intellect as a species and bringing about massive changes to languages).

Employment

Technology has vastly improved employment and becoming increasingly important (and often essential) to peoples jobs. It has allowed ease in communication, increased workplace productivity and a variety of new job types to appear. As it continues to advance, technology shall play a significant role in determining the future of the jobs and how we work.

Printers -

Printers are widely overlooked when it comes to improvements brought to employment in the information age, but they are one of the most significant new features available. In the past, people would have to rewrite whole documents by hand or typewriter if they needed more than one copy of their work. This made the creation of posters, leaflets, applications and other papers needing to be reproduced an extremely tedious chore. Nowadays people have the ability to produce a vast amount of copies of work with hardly any effort at all, a feature which many people take for granted.

Humans Replaced By Machinery -

Due to the massive advances in technology, machinery is starting to replace human workers in a selection of jobs highly dangerous, inaccessible or easier for machines to be doing. A prime example of this in action are military robots, these are used activities for bomb disposal (over 10,000 roadside bombs have been defused by robots in Iraq), remote controlled operations (via the use of unmanned air vehicles) and more. Moving away from saving lives and violent uses; many factories which mass produce products have significantly reduced their staff numbers so as to accommodate large automatic machines for faster and cheaper production (uses can range from food production, to car manufacturing, to model building and more). In terms of inaccessible jobs, machines uses include: space discovery via probes, mining, volcanic surveys and more.

Entertainment

In modern times online entertainment plays a major role in society. The internet provides us with a widely accessible and almost unlimited source of entertainment. The main factors of this entertainment are music, videos, art, gaming, reading and animation.

Videos -

On the internet there are huge amounts of locations in which people may view videos. Some of the more popular sites for doing so are Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/), BBC Iplayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/) and Netflix (http://movies.netflix.com/). Netflix is a site which allows subscription paying members to view their huge collection of television programs and films via digital distribution. It currently offers over 100,000 titles and has more than 10 million subscribers. Due to this it has 2000 plus employees and a revenue of 3.2 billion dollars (source of statistics – Wikipedia). BBC Iplayer on the other hand is a free service which allows users within the UK to watch the latest episodes of TV programmes broadcast on channels owned by the BBC. Youtube (a website which was bought by Google for 1.65 billion dollars) however is unique when compared to these two services as it provides seemingly free video service with which anybody in the world may share videos on.

YouTube’s Pros:

•     Anyone anywhere can upload videos to the website for free.
•     People are able to reach large audiences with their content (the current most popular video on Youtube, ‘Gangnam Style’, has over 835 million views).
•    Is localized in 43 countries and across 60 languages.
•    Seemingly endless amounts of content (72 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute).
• Popular users are able to earn money from adverts on their videos due to the partnership programme and Google AdSense.
• The content ID system prevents copyrighted audio and footage from being uploaded.
• Youtube has a thriving community of active video makers.

YouTube’s Cons:

• Users may occasionally stumble upon inappropriate material (e.g. violence, pornography, drug  use, extremely offensive language).
• Adverts may ruin the experience for some.
• Content can be stolen from the websites via the use of third-party software and websites.

A final video service which is available online is live streaming. Live streaming allows people to broadcast their video footage directly to the internet as it happens. This can be useful in cases such as sporting events and natural disasters, both of which often require almost instant publicity so as to notify members of the public about current events. Two popular live streaming websites are USTREAM (http://www.ustream.tv/new) and livestream (http://new.livestream.com/).

Gaming -

Gaming is one of the major aspects of online entertainment. The types of games available to people ranges from simple flash games (such as Angry Birds), to huge interactive multiplayer environments such as those found in World of Warcraft and Second Life, and even gambling. Focusing on one area of online gaming, the MMO (meaning ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Game’) market is hugely appealing to many. It allows users to virtually interact with people from all across the globe and perform various activities such as questing, exploration and raids. ‘World of Warcraft’ is by far one of the most successful subscription based MMORPGs (‘massively multiplayer online role playing games’) on the planet. It has been around since 2004, has experienced constant updating and currently has four expansions (‘The burning crusade’, ‘Wrath of the Lich King’, ‘Cataclysm’ and ‘Mists of pandaria’) and had over 10.2 million players at its peak. The subscription cost of the game is currently $14.99 per month which means that Blizzard (the company responsible for World Of Warcraft) would have been making over 1800 million dollars in a year. The game itself is set in the fantasy world of ‘Azeroth’ and allows its players to battle for either the ‘Alliance’ (the stereotypical ‘good’ side consisting of humans, elves, gnomes and more) or the ‘Horde’ (the ‘evil’ side consisting of the living dead, orcs, trolls and so on). Once in the game, the player will be able to freely roam the world, attempt quests, slay bosses and team up with other people who own the game. The game provides a vast amount of tricks and psychology persuades the users to continue playing and paying. These tricks include the element of reward for levelling up (new areas, items and skills will become available as they do so), the desire to discover (the land is full of secret areas and places which are hard to find, thus making the player yearn to play more) and the likelihood that a bond will be formed between other players. These bonds make it extremely hard for some people to quit playing, as they do not wish to disappoint or abandon their new friends and ‘guilds’ (basically just large groups of players which work together to make the game more enjoyable for each other).

Download Services

Download services allow people to store files from the various online services on their hard drives. These services can include audio (often MP3 or WAV format), videos (Mp4, QuickTime, WMV and more), pictures (Gif, Jpg, Png, etc), apps, software, games and more. These files are then available for users to use without the use of the internet; this can be extremely useful in situations such as airplane and bus journeys, holidays and other such events in which the user would be unable to access the internet. To add to this, many programs are simply too large and complex to supported in a browser and therefore require distribution via download.

Apps -

Nowadays many mobile phones allow users to download ‘apps’ (such as games, gadgets and more) onto their devices. The two major online marketplaces for doing so are Apple’s ‘itunes store’ (http://www.apple.com/uk/) and ‘Google Play’ (https://play.google.com/store). These downloads have proved to be extremely popular that a hugely wealthy industry has been built up around them. An example of success in the app market is the game ‘Angry Birds’. ‘Angry Birds’ is a simple game in which the user must use a catapult to fire various birds into fortresses. Despite its simplicity, the game has made over $106 million in sales and has been downloaded more than 648 million times. Indeed its popularity is so great that ‘Angry Birds’ merchandise is now sold by many major retailers (including Toys R Us, Game, HMV and more).

Music -

As a result of the popularity of smart phones, iPods and various other music playing devices there has been an enormous increase in music downloads. So much so that music industry seems to be increasingly more focused on downloads. In 2011 the amount of albums sold via download in the UK increased by a huge 24% rise on the previous year; whereas CD sales decreased by 13% (Source - BBC News, see link for more information: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16382648). One of the huge advantages to downloading music is that users are often able to purchase songs without needing to own the full album; for example somebody could download ‘We Will Rock You’ by Queen by Queen without needing to ‘splash out’ on the entire album, thus saving money and adding to the overall customer satisfaction of buying music. Some popular sites for music downloads include bandcamp (http://bandcamp.com/), Soundcloud (http://soundcloud.com/dashboard), iTunes (http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/), Napster (http://www.napster.co.uk/start), Spotify (http://www.spotify.com/) and Beatport (http://www.beatport.com/).   

Software -

It is now common for software to be distributed via download. One major company whom largely distribute their programs with downloads across the internet is Adobe (software developed by Adobe includes Photoshop, Flash, After Effects and more, website link: http://www.adobe.com/). To combat illegal downloading of their products they protect the majority of their software with serial keys (randomly generated numbers which allow user authentication). Despite this however, internet criminals are still able to obtain the software for free via the use of cracks and keygens (serial key generators).

Issues -

The major issue with download services is that some people are able to transfer copied files to others for free via programs and websites such as piratebay (http://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/), Mediafire (http://www.mediafire.com/), BitTorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/), Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/) and more. The vast amounts of these illegal downloads are have a large impact on a variety of industries, the main two being music and video both of whom are losing literally billions as a result of the downloads (news story giving information about piracy in the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19599527). It can also be crippling to smaller businesses which rely of the successes of their products download sales.