Alex uses his mobile phone for work related tasks such as if he needs to check when he has to go to work on that day or if he wants to take a day of, he can go on his mobile phone and use the email function to see if he has any work that needs to be done. The calculator function on his mobile phone can help him with any calculations that need to be done if he doesn’t have a calculator it would be very handy. Another way he could use it for work is with the alarm function if he needs to wake up for work, he can set the alarm to what ever time he wants to. This will prevent him from over sleeping and getting late.
Personal: (For his own use)
Alex uses mobile phones personally to put listen to music via the mp3 function on it anytime he is travelling about. He can use the internet feature to check online the latest news and sports and can also check his email to see if he has been sent anything from and newsletters that he has subscribed to. He uses it to contact friends and family to talk about any anything interesting that has happened and he uses the camera feature to take pictures and videos for special times. He can also play games on his mobile phone which can be very fun.
Evaluate Personal Needs
It is good at fulfilling his personal needs because the camera feature of the mobile phone is an alternative to buying an expensive digital camera separately. Some advanced phones can contain up to a 10 mega pixel camera with amazing quality. This is good because digital cameras are mostly quite expensive. The music feature on the phone allows him to listen to music without buying a separate mp3 player. It is bad for his personal needs because recent studies show that mobile phones can contain several health risks. A study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of 4,500 users found a statistically significant link between tumour frequency and mobile phone use. Without a mobile phone life would be very difficult for Alex as
Social needs
Alex uses a mobile phone socially for friends and family to contact him and for him to contact them. If he is meeting up with a friends and he is running late, he can quickly make a phone call to the person to inform them that he is going to be late so that they don’t think that he hasn’t just left them waiting and they might decide to leave. It is good at fulfilling his social needs because people can easily contact him through his mobile phone. He can send and receive calls and texts at a relatively low price and the mobile phone is very portable. It is bad for fulfilling his social needs for example if he needs to urgently contact a friend and his battery life is finished, he cannot do so.
Evaluate social Needs
It is good at fulfilling his social needs because people can easily contact him through his mobile phone. He can send and receive calls and texts at a relatively low price and the mobile phone is very portable. It is bad for fulfilling his social needs because for example if he needs to urgently contact a friend and the battery life is finished, he cannot do so. Life without a mobile phone would be very different. It will difficult for him to get in contact with people and for people to contact him.
Type of technology the adult use - Technology 2
Description of technology
The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It has various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web.
Advantages
- Easy and fast communication around the world via email, chat sites, etc.
- Unlimited information about all topics
- Can do shopping from home
- Can find information 24/7
- Up-to-date on everything
Disadvantages
- Personal information such as banking passwords can be stolen
- Information can be biased as it may have been written from only one point of view
- Access to unsuitable or even illegal sites is easy
- Information can be unreliable as it may not have been checked and rechecked by another ‘party’ as they do for books.
- It can also be very addictive for some people
How the technology meets the needs of the adult
Professionally and how it has affected the adult’s working styles (the way the adult works):
Alex needs the Internet in various different methods for his professional needs and uses.
He uses search engines such as google.com or ask.com to do his research for different things. If he needs to do research on how he is going to make more profit and make more customers come to his shop, he can do market research on the internet to find the latest products that are on high demand so he can make a larger profit. He can also do his work from home whenever he wants to. He also has and uses Internet on his mobile phone. This makes it easier for him to do his job even while he is travelling. Without the internet it will be hard for him do research on how to sell products and get customers, therefore he would not make as much profit.
Personal: (For his own use)
Alex uses the Internet at home to compare the prices of different products in different shops from which he would like to buy. Sometimes he also uses the Internet to do online shopping, as it is faster and less tiring than going himself. He also uses the internet (email in particular) personally to communicate with friends and family on a regular basis. It is much faster than writing a letter and is a cheap way of communicating with those who live abroad. Another way he uses email personally is to download the latest music and videos to put onto his Ipod which he can watch and listen to when he is travelling to and from work.
Evaluate Personal Needs
He can easily check his email and be kept up to date with the latest sport scores and news; however it is a disadvantage for his personal needs because if he needs to check the latest scores and he does not have access to a computer, he can not check it. If he receives an email form a person he does not know, it may contain a virus on it which can cause harm to his computer. If it contains spyware, people can get hold of his credit card numbers and other personal information which can cause a lot of damage.
Social needs
Alex uses the internet socially to email friends and family to contact them or use msn messenger to talk with them online. If other people email him something very important, he can quickly go and receive the email.
Evaluate social Needs
It is good for his social needs because people can send him emails and it is a quick method to stay in contact and is an alternative to writing letters which take a long time to be received and sent. A disadvantage to using the internet for his social needs is that people can send him junk email and things that he has not even subscribed up for and this can be very annoying and a waste of time. Without the internet he would need an alternative to communicating with friends like using text messages or using the mobile, however to communicate with friends abroad it can be very expensive.
Type of technology the adult use - Technology 3
Description of technology
My third and final technology is an mp4 player. These players are capable of displaying images, videos, and text files. Even so, the earlier players were usually unable to play any MPEG-4 format videos and were limited to proprietary file formats such as MTV, DMV, MPV and AMV. This is beginning to change however, as more of these players manufactured in recent years have begun supporting MPEG-4 format video files. The battery can last for several hours, although this amount greatly varies depending on the model of the player and what the player is being used for.
Advantages
- Portable
- Light weight
- Lots of memory
- Long battery life
- Can be attached to the computer, laptop and television.
Disadvantages
- Easily damaged
- Can get stolen
- Illegal downloading of songs and videos
How the technology meets the needs of the adult
Professionally and how it has affected the adult’s working styles (the way the adult works):
Alex can use his mp4 player for work related task. For example, if he needs to save an important document he can save it on his mp4. This is an alternative to using a USB memory stick. Because the mp4 player has got a lot of memory, you can save a lot of important files on it in addition to your favourite videos and music.
Personal: (For his own use)
He uses the mp4 player personally to listen to music and to watch videos when he is travelling. If he is watching a drama and he misses an episode, Alex can find it on the internet and download it to his mp4 player, so he can watch it any time he wants. It has a large memory capacity which allows Alex to put a lot of things on it. He can watch all the movies and dramas on my mp4 player and some advanced mp4 players even have the ability to watch TV on it.
Evaluate Personal Needs
The mp4 is good for fulfilling his personal needs because it allows him to stay up to date with all the latest TV programs that are on and all the latest movies. When he has spare time and nothing else to do, this is a great way to spend him time. For example when he is travelling on an aeroplane, it is usually a long journey so he can watch movies on his mp4 to make time go quicker. There are also disadvantages such as the battery life could go in the middle of when he is watching a film. If he does not take good care of it, the mp4 player could get damaged, and it would be very expensive to get it replaced.
Social needs
He can use his mp4 player socially when travelling with friends; he can show them his music and videos. If there is a party and suddenly there is a problem with the music, he can plug in some speakers into the mp4 player and then everyone will be able to hear the music. The mp4 player has many different features that can be very useful in some social situations.
Take these steps for the remaining 3 technologies.
