Computers and The Pursuit of happiness

 Advantages of Internet

→ We can find each and every part of information about anything we want.

→ Saves money and time:

We can perform our work easily without spending much time in computer and increase their efficiency. We can communicate almost with everyone wherever we are through the net

→ The cheapest and fastest and most influential means of communication:

We can have the latest news at the click of the mouse. The internet is such a medium that it can give many options for the kind of the information required. The wide reach offered by mass media phenomenal. It can target a global audience.

→ The most influential means of education, entertainment, business and social mobility. Television, movies, internet and the radio are some of the best form of the entertainment. Mass media can be used for educational purposes in an effective manner.

 Disadvantages of internet

→ It turns the real life into a virtual one:

The uses of internet have created a new turn in the old rules and pattern of love and relationship. Though people tie the relationship through net but the decision of staying together is not taken randomly as such form of bonds lack trust. Chat rooms meetings and the email communication can end by serious misunderstanding and misrepresentation from both the sides.

→ It promotes and facilitates inhuman and illegal activities:

When two online daters meet in real life usually they get shocked due to non-matching in that they have shared in internet. There is no any proof that the people whom you met on line are anything like the people that they say they are.

Various crimes like hacking, stealing of money from bank accounts, operation of company in websites, blackmailing, fake email ID and useless harassing messages, etc. are well facilitated.

News can be manipulated to influence the mind of audiences. For example, a particular political party may manipulate reports in their favor, which would indicate the political control in media. Media bias can occur due to various issues. A journalist or an editor may give personal preference to an issue

→ It is misused in war and destruction:

→ No sensor, no control and no authenticity over what appears on the screen:

A particular event and a celebrity may receive undue importance and set wrong ideals amongst youngster. Unnecessary sensationalism of an issue may project wrong information to public. Misleading messages may divert young mind towards a wrong path. Wrong interpretation of the news may lead to unrest and violence in certain place.

Summary

The essay, ‘Computer and the Pursuit of Happiness,’ written by David Gelernter, deals with the influence of the computer and internet on individual and on the society. This reading is followed by a letter to the editor disagreeing with the various aspect of argument. In this essay, Gelernter addresses three questions/ issues:

- Whether thanks to Computers and the Internet, we are now living in a new information age. He says that we are not living in a new information age and computers and the Internet do not represent a revolutionary development in human history except in science and engineering. He disputes the claims of those arguing the existence of a new information age.

-  Whether computers have been beneficial or harmful to humanity over the last fifty years. He answers it negatively. He says that despite the information and wealth that computers have generated, human happiness hasn’t increased on the whole. New technologies have come into existence, but the social structures they have created haven’t necessarily improved and the human element associated with the old structures has decreased.

-  Whether computers are likely to have positive or negative influence over the next half century. As response to this question, he states that technology will have little to do with human happiness in the future

Gelernter raised the issues like whether we are living in information age, whether the old age has ended and we are living in new age, whether the computer have been good or bad for the mankind over the last half-century , and whether the computer are likely to be good or bad over the next half-century. He tries to give powerful answer to the above mentioned question through historical comparisons. He came to the conclusion that we are not living in the revolutionary information age. According to the writer, the computer and the internet have not brought happiness and prosperity in the modern life; neither will they bring welfare and well being in future life. He further says that the computer and the internet do not stand for revolutionary development in human history. On the whole, human happiness has not increased but decreased because of so called great advancement of technology. Though, a kind of technological revolution has occurred, the social structures that have been created have not improved. Thus, according to the writer, the modern technology will have little to do with human happiness in future.