Also in education, some students may have problems with handwriting which means using a computer will make his/her work much more presentable and subsequently may lead them to get higher marks in their work. This is a great advantage when coursework which involves marks for presentation needs to be completed as using a computer will make the work much more clear and tidy therefore the candidate will be liable to gain more marks for presentation which is vital whenever the difference between a ‘A’ grade and a ‘B’ grade is a couple of marks. However another disadvantage in this situation is that not all students will have computers to make their work tidier, which means it may take them longer to do their work or they may lose marks for presentation.
There are also some damaging physical effects of using the computer. An injury known as RSI (Repetitive-strain injury) can occur in people who use the computer often; clumsiness, migraines and damage to the eyes are also physical concerns involved when using the computer. Most of these injuries and disorders are easily repaired and they only occur with continuous use of computers. Usually they will appear in people who work with computers in offices all day however many businesses and organisations are now expected to offer several helpful conditions to prevent the cause of these injuries, such as many more breaks when using the computers. In my opinion this situation doesn’t really affect young people as they normally won’t spend all day on the computer. Even if they study Information Technology or Computer Studies at school they will only spend about two hours and twenty minutes working on computers at the most. This will probably affect older people rather than younger people.
I agree that computers are expensive to buy and they can go out of date quickly. Computers are very expensive to buy these days and usually, when you do buy them you’ll have to buy other forms hardware such as printers and speakers, which can be very expensive as well as software to run your computer, and once you have purchased all this produce it will soon go out of date. However using a computer can then have great advantages on many aspects of someone’s life: It can help with education, it can be a source of entertainment, such as computer games or chatting on the internet, it is a great way to communicate and communication over the Internet is also cheap and easy, it can make your work more presentable and helps with writing and finally it opens you up to a lot of information via the internet which can help with schoolwork to obtain a higher grade in assignments or essays. Everything in life will eventually go out of date for example, clothes and fashion. Computers will go out of date and many more improved computers will become available which is a great disadvantage because eventually you will have to upgrade your computer which will cost a lot of money.
Over-use of computers can make people anti-social is a big disadvantage of computers and can end up ruining young people’s social skills, especially at such an impressionable time in their life. If young people have a bad experience with others or seem to be bored when not using the computer, can end up becoming addicted to computers and can upset their social lives and skills which can lead to difficulty getting a job or forming a relationship in the future. Also over-use of computers can lead to a potentially life threatening lack of physical exercise in young people, and at this time in their life this may not seem to obvious or important to them. These seem to be situations were young people will need to be informed before using the computer and there are no real advantages to them.
As I have stated before computers are becoming an integral part of society and some fear, and probably rightly so, that we are becoming too dependent on computers. In the future, if computers become more popular we could end up not needing to write with our hands and nearly all transactions, businesses and communication will be carried out over computers. With computers being so easily affected by viruses and being extremely involuntary this could be a very dangerous situation.
Another big disadvantage of young people using computers is that some young people may come in contact with paedophiles over the internet and if they meet with these people in real life they could be physically and psychologically damaged. Also if any private information is given out over the internet, financial and personal information can be exploited which could ruin a person’s life. Usually young people will fall victim in these situations as they are more gullible and naïve and more easily convinced that what they are told is truth.
I think that computers can be very dangerous and disadvantageous machines, especially when young people use them, but since they have become so important and almost essential in our society they will always be used and probably more frequently by young people, disregarding the possible consequences of using them.
