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Is technology changing us for the better?
Even in this post modern age, there must be a point of equilibrium, a point where one can strike a balance between real world and the newly emerging virtual world. The constant march of nifty new computers, user-friendly technologies, resulting popularity and what one can do with these has made it hard to tell where that point is.
In our society, home computer users’ base is growing without doubts. Tech-savvy who are in the know of matters are viewing the exponential increase in the home users against the kinds of uses. How far the productive use is increasing, beyond the chat rooms, exposures to unwanted material and imagery, getting skewed information from biased sources, or wasting time in unproductive searches by anyone who can boot up the computer and has an access to the internet.
When I started discussing the subject for the purpose of this column, asking what young people do with computer at home, every one said the same thing: “Well, how can one live without computer at home in this age?” How easy it is to find any information about home computer users in the US, China and or Japan — three top computer home users’ nations in the world? It is all there on the web.
In the absence of any statistics about home users and uses in the country, one may as well agree with what everyone says. A personal snapshot survey was conducted in which undergraduates studying in various educational institutions of Lahore selected randomly were asked their preferences through personally administered questionnaire (and emails), in order to determine what they do with computers at home.
The subject was also discussed with teachers and parents to substantiate the findings. All respondents had computers and access to the internet at home. Dimensions, such as income, education, computer skills, experience with cyber crimes and gender were examined. None of the respondent had credit card that is required to enter some of the websites or for online shopping.
The analysis of raw data may not be conclusive or representative of the whole society but it does point to some interesting findings that may prove to be eye -openers for further research in this field.
How the computers entered Pakistani homes in the first place? In a society where students are not used to earn money to buy things or support their studies, they do things on parents’ money. Majority of the parents were found keen that their children should have and learn computers. Why?
The response varied: parent want their children to be part of the growing trend, some wanted to let them have what they never had themselves, need of the students who are pursuing studies in computer related fields.
Small number also mentioned procurement of computers because everyone else has it. What is more, taking advantage of young generations’ interest, marketers of the internet services are focussing their efforts to the youth though no serious efforts are seen to make it more affordable for them. Only a couple of ISPs had introduced rebated “students packages” at the start of their operations.
Considering the prices of computers hardware (not to mention most of the pirated software available in market), telephone connection and bill, cost of the Internet time, and maintenance, it is difficult to afford computers for a vast majority of the population.
What student say they do with computers is this: majority does word processing combined with “research,” email, surfing and downloading information or software and some other functions. IM and other infamous tasks were not included in the questionnaire.
In response to another question, majority of students (71 per cent) said that they use computer at home for academic pursuits, that is, for learning. But “the quality of work produced by students using internet sources is less than satisfactory,” says university teacher Asghar Javed.
Quite a number of students were relegated because of plagiarism while doing a class assignment in Human Resource Management Course in University of the Punjab lately, told Munir Ahmad, a student.
Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R.Cooper in their book titled, The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing describes, “Writers — students and professionals alike — occasionally misuse sources by failing to acknowledge them properly.
The word, plagiarism, which derives from the Latin word for “kidnapping,” refers to the unacknowledged use of another’s words, ideas, or information.” A study conducted on behalf of six Australian universities has found that more than eight per cent of Australian college students essay work includes large amount of text, which has been plagiarized from the web.
Muhammad Aslam, another teacher said, “Most students consider that a cut from here and a past there is creative. They believe this search as research work.”
Some kind of operating skill is required to use computers. The problem of any one in total command of computers at a young age gets aggravated when other family members are not familiar with the use of computers (which is not the case with telephone, TV, VCR or cable as any one can operate them) and when those who know are reluctant to share their expertise with their parents or other family members, on purpose that is.
On acquiring computer skills, 51 per cent, said they are self-taught, 40 per cent had learnt (or were learning) skills in educational institutions and rest said they had learnt computer operations from family members. On expertise level, 40 per cent could rank applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets and games or collaborative applications, such as email, newsgroups, and file downloading (in this order respectively). Others did not answer the question. IT students had more favourable attitudes about the usefulness of computers for education, communication, and other functions.
“A computer more than any other machine needs a tender care, maintenance and a clean environment to stay healthy and to work properly to produce what is needed from it and not knowing how to perform simple maintenance is an abuse,” says a techie Patty Furgosen. But maintenance does not seem to be a popular concern of users.
A marginal number (8 per cent) of respondents knew about “disk defragmenter.” No female in the survey had opened the computer case ever whereas 37 per cent male said they had.
Early in year 2002, it was reported in the press that one security agency has launched a special wing to combat cyber crimes because the country had to rely on foreign investigators for tracing the criminals. “The purpose of establishing the National Response Center for cyber crimes is to stop misuse of the internet and trace those involved in cyber-related crimes,” the report read.
A few trails have also been reported exposing the onset of criminal activities. Cyber crimes like theft of credit card, records, secrets information, infiltrating into others’ systems or more heinous crimes of alarming nature are not yet common but the danger does loom on the horizon.
What is common between the young users is guessing the passwords of others’ internet accounts and web mailboxes. This is wrongly called “hacking” here. To a gestation, “Have you ever encountered any kind of cyber crime since you started using the internet, plain answer of 90 per cent was No? Rest said there account and or email passwords had been “hacked” at least once.
Given the limited scope, the survey banished some famous myths about female. Axioms like women do not (or cannot) work on computers is no more true and it is no secret.
Other cultural stereotypes including societal, educational and domestic attitudes of female expertise are also changing visibly. Female are catching up with male when it comes to logging on to computers or the internet. “Even in IT education, more girls than boys are enrolling,” says Asghar Javed. In this survey 46 per cent of the sample were female. The entire female sample and half of the male said they preferred to log on the internet at home.
The female respondents did not subscribe to the view that computer have changed their activities. They said their routine has remained unchanged. Male respondents (87 per cent) admitted that the use of computer has reduced other outdoor activities, such as playing field games, outing with friends, etc.
Computer and the internet are great tools for learning and communication; they open up all sorts of possibilities for those who are about to start their practical life. The important to note is the use. Young generation is yet not utilizing computers and the net optimally?
The writer
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