How can computing innovation be beneficial and harmful? How can computing innovation have impact beyond its intended purposes?
Computing innovation has many benefits because through these innovations we have managed to make incredible things such as 3D printers, phones, VR headsets, handheld devices, and much more! Firstly, the reason why computing innovations are beneficial, according to Albert.io, is because they have led to breakthroughs in medicine, engineering, and communications. An example of this is provided by Albert.io where a patient can schedule an online consultation using a video conference app to speak with their doctor and the doctor is able to give immediate advice while looking at the patient's health record through a secure digital portal. Thanks to technological advancements, people in the healthcare industry can get things done quicker and help out more people. Additionally computing innovation has helped people share ideas and even help others who need it. For example, the internet, if someone has a question about a certain topic they can go to an online forum where multiple people can help and communicate giving real advice. But computing innovations can have harmful effects as well, sometimes effects that inventors didn’t mean to create.
While computing innovations can be amazing especially in certain fields of study or in everyday life, challenges can be created due to this. For example, privacy loss, increased cybersecurity risks, hurting the environment, decrease in good mental health, and more. Computing innovations such as gaming consoles or even your phone can be considered great and a good resource to kill time or for work purposes but these seemingly harmless devices have caused problems to certain people when it isn’t used the way it’s supposed to. To give an example, if a gaming console is given to a child it is most likely that child will end up using it for long periods of time which can lead to eye soreness, behavioral problems, difficulty concentrating, and more. All of these problems that come with computing innovations makes you wonder if scientists, engineers, programmers, or every other person involved in these technological advancements knew the downsides of what they were making.
Computing innovations can have an impact (both positive and negative) beyond what it was originally intended for. An example of a positive effect would be the internet. Originally it was intended for scientists to share information between each other but then it gradually became what we know today where everyone can access information and connect with others. If we use the internet again as an example, it has also brought a negative impact after everyone had access to it. The negative effects include addiction, mental health declining, and even an increase of anxiety within young adults and teens. From these two examples it is clear that the negative effects that come from technological advancements aren’t what creators wanted to happen. The internet’s intended purpose was to help others spread and get information on certain topics for people to learn and use but on the way some negative effects were brought up because of the way users were using the internet. In conclusion technological advancements can have both a positive and negative impact even if the creator intended to only have a positive impact
