IT and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

IT and Society - Essay Example E-mail and instant messaging is also an effective way to communicate by sending and receiving messages. An optimistic view of this is that information technology promotes communication between people and must therefore help to spread social and international understanding. People who are thousands of miles apart, either literally or socially speaking, can communicate through 'chat' groups, bulletin boards or e-mail; they can obtain information on different ways of life through World Wide Web sites and even experience the 'virtual reality' of other ways of life through interactive programs. More efficient production using IT creates more wealth, which can be shared amongst all the groups concerned. It can thus be argued that the technology has a built-in bias in favour of reducing social and economic divisions. (Tansey, 2002, p. 214) Perrons (2004) holds the opinion that technology develops within specific sets of economic and social arrangements and technological possibilities are not realised automatically, that is social change does not automatically follow technology. Indeed the technology underpinning existed and was being implemented in the 1920s, but sustained accumulation did not follow. Changes were necessary in the prevailing mode of regulation, that is in the institutional arrangements within which individual and social reproduction takes place. (Perrons, 2004, p. 131) Perrons (2004) further states that the precise effects of e-commerce on economic and social development are contingent, varied and rapidly changing and therefore need to be explored empirically. The same processes or technologies that allow small firms access to world markets, which may enhance local development, simultaneously give peripheral consumers access to firms in the centre thereby facilitating the development of 'superstar' firms, and in turn potentially promote superstar regions. (Perrons, 2004, p. 180) In a broader spectrum IT helps telecommunications (TC) and networks to constantly implement to support organisational goals. Stair & Reynolds while providing an IT implementation example explains: suppose a business needs to develop an accurate monthly production forecast. Doing so requires a manger to download data from customers' databases of sales forecasts. TC can provide a network link so that the manager can access the data needed for the production forecast report, which in turn supports the company's objectives of better financial planning. (Stair & Reynolds, 2001, p. 146) The more individuals and organisations grasp the nature of the technology and its possibilities, the greater the probability they can influence the direction of change. A modest hope is that increased communication and a greater pooling of information should in the long run make it easier for people, organisations and states to reach, if not a consensus on what should be done, at least informed compromises on how to live together. (Tansey, 2002, p. 214) Presently, IT has enabled our social system to confront with social change in the