It is obvious to anyone that obviously ICT is going to have a great affect the company surf sup, since essentially we are selling the use of ICT. However looking beyond what it is our company does, ICT is also fundamental to the employment of staff, the training of staff, the jobs available to staff and more.
Our staff at surf sup need to be fully capable in operating computers as they will be spending a great deal of their time assisting customers with any queries about the capabilities of the system or the facilities. They will also need to be equipped in dealing with the more technical side of things, and the financial management, for instance handling the databases and often spreadsheets. Surprisingly, even in this day and age there are not that many people around we can employ who have this knowledge of computers, or knowledge to the extent they will need, so we often take on new staff that we will train up, either ourselves or by placing them on a short course. ICT also helps us as the employers as we advertise vacancies on the Internet, we can check potential employees backgrounds all at the click of a mouse as well. We also can keep all staff records in our database, in a similar style to that in which we keep our customers relevant info.
Customers are also aware of the impact of ICT as they are able to find out all about our company simply by accessing our website. They can be quite easily contacted via email, and we can email with advertisements as well as placing advertisements elsewhere on the Internet. Customers can book computers through the website and see when we are open and where we are based. Customers can also alert of any changes we may need to make to their personal record like a change of address or even a change of name. They can make us aware should they decide they’d like to discontinue their use of our service. ICT is just so useful all round.
The moral issues related to the use of ICT are quite controversial and are still openly discussed and very much talked about. There are serious issues related to ICT in the news all the time. For instance, cyber-bullying has become a grievous problem, this is where a victim is targeted and then abuse is reined on them through email, hate sites, chat rooms, and social networking sites. Some could argue that bullying happens with or without ICT but any form of bullying should not be allowed to occur wherever possible. There is also the issue of internet gaming, it is believed by some that an increased amount of time is spent sat in front of the computers, leading to childhood obesity rates soaring. ICT has also ‘made things too easy’, as some older generations are claiming. They argue that children of today are not as hardworking as maybe they once were. There are often stories in the news of paedophiles targeting children via the internet, fooling them into thinking they were of a similar age and persuading them to meet up with the paedophile, leading to potentially very dangerous situations for that child. This is why it is constantly stressed to anyone accessing the Internet to keep personal information to themselves however convincing online ‘friends’ may be. There are inappropriate sites accessible on the internet as well (including violent, scary, or nude content as well as paedophilia etc.) so our plan at SURF SUP is to block any inappropriate sites from the computers and to block SPAM emails with security measures such as firewall for virus protection.
There is an argued point that ICT has caused a division between ‘classes’. With claims that richer people have better opportunities as better resources are made available to them. This is even true in the classroom, with homework increasingly being made to be completed on a computer, those children that haven’t got computers are rather, unintentionally, discriminated against. So the poorer members of our societies are missing out rather.
Developing countries compared to Wealthier countries also have similar problems, as developing countries are rather left behind when it comes to technology. However action is being taken to solve this problem that is causing such a massive cultural divide as charities and businesses are sending over computers to some of the poorer countries.
