The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) was passed, stating that: “It's unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public’. but there are other disable people that are not phsycally able to cope with the equirpment for example people that have parkinson disease and not able to use a keyboards, mouse etc…
Internet users who have impaired vision may utilize a screen reader, which reads the content of the web page, or rather the HTML code of the page, back to them. These machines sift through the HTML code and the technology deciphers what needs to be read aloud and what should be ignored. In my personal experience schools do not have enough resources (computers) for each classrooms which can cause to be a disadvantage. Computers can be very useful at school. It helps students to revise for tests or exams and makes subjects more interesting. Pupils can also learn new vocabulary and gramatic structures. It also allows students to become familiar with operating a computer and gain basic computer skills. People can save a lot of time by using a computer. This is especially beneficial in the workplace where employees can do their work faster than they could in the past.
Religion is another aspect in which people don’t use computers or want access to the internet. They consider it as the work of the ‘devil’ which can be another reason why society don’t want access to ICT.
There are certain cons and dangers relating to the use of Internet that can be summarised as:
- Personal Information: If you use the Internet, your personal information such as your name, address, etc. can be accessed by other people. If you use a credit card to shop online, then your credit card information can also be ‘stolen’ which could be akin to giving someone a blank check.
- Pornography: This is a very serious issue concerning the Internet, especially when it comes to young children. There are thousands of pornographic sites on the Internet that can be easily found and can be a detriment to letting children use the Internet.
- Spamming: This refers to sending unsolicited e-mails in bulk, which serve no purpose and unnecessarily clog up the entire system.
Computers have affected people in so many ways, such as social gathering e.g. facebook, my space, msn etc… facebook estimated that 132.1 million people used facebook in June 2008. In my personal experience I use facebook to communicate and stay in touch with my friends. Many people use these types of social networking to communicate with each other. President Barack Obama is the first leading government men to use their phone for emails. He’s campaign was mainly online having speeches and videos and products and other sources of information in order to get voters on his side. Many businesses and organisations are using emails to communicate with individuals or even using mail merge which can customize your own letter to send it.
Many people use the internet to shop online. Shopping online is one of the biggest things on the internet that people do. Many shops only have online stores because it is one of the biggest ways to buy products.
In recent years the internet is adapting to new technology which copes with disable users. The BBC is one website which has certain aspects which handles people with disability.
In this report I have shown the disadvantages and the advantages of using ICT. Though there are a lot of Disadvantages when using ICT and the internet, more and more users are using the internet and computers everyday.
