Information technology saves a lot of time and increases production of goods and services.An example of a bakery that uses technologically automated temperature sensors to detect the variations in temperature and correct them. Such a factory will run efficiently as compared to a bakery that uses the manual system of controlling temperatures. This saves the bakery time and money to pay operators. It also increases production and efficiency of the factory.
Information technology increases the speed and efficiency of communication and passing across information. The internet and its social networks improve communication between people in different parts of the world. This makes the world a global village. Mobile phones and television sets are other examples of information technology tools that enhance faster and efficient communication of information across the world.
Information technology makes it easy to collect and store data. Way before the emergence of the computer, information was stored in written documents and put in files. These were vulnerable to getting lost and took a lot of time and space for arranging and storage. The incoming of information technology and specifically the computer bypassed this problem as files can easily be stored and accessed from a hard disk. Carrying files from one computer to another is easier as one can easily copy a file to a flash disk and access it in their personal computer at their own convenience.
Information technology improves financial management. With software used for accounting, for example, quick books, bookkeeper and save 50 improves the performance of several tasks in a business. Business owners can thank information technology for making it faster to balance books with less experience in accounting as the software designed for performing such tasks are well equipped with tools needed for doing so. They can also access their financial information in accounting at any time and convenience.
Disadvantages of Information Technology
Even though information technology has abundant advantages, it also has some disadvantages.One of the disadvantages of information technology is the loss of the brain to do simple mathematics. The constant use of calculators and computers to do simple mathematics makes the brain lazy hence; it loses the ability to tackle simple mathematical problems. Information technology has made everything easily accessible. Solving mathematical problems that needed many calculations and thinking is easier with a click on a calculator after feeding in the information required.
Information technology also makes individuals addicted to it lose their social skills. The emergence of social networks makes people spend a lot of time indoors chatting with people they would never meet or will never meet in life instead of going out to interact with others. The television and most of the entertainment products of modern information technology also encourages laziness and reduces the social skills in people, as they tend to spend a lot of time watching and downloading stuff from the internet.
Another disadvantage of information and technology is that it reduces the level of patience in people.Long before the onset of information technology people used to spend a lot of time in a library digging into books for the acquisition of information. The onset of information technology however made it easier for the acquisition of information technology and Google to be specific has made it easier than normal to acquire online information about anything. This of course came with lose of patience to read a book for information one requires. People tend to visit websites that have information that is directly forward than websites that require one to read many pages to acquire information.
Personally Identifiable Information
This is information that is used on its own or in conjunction with other sources of information to locate, track, and identify a single person. This information kept by an agency and includes all the information about a single individual such as medical, employment and financial information about the person and used by the agency when needed. Even though this increases the efficiency of searching and identifying a person in case they commit crimes, it has several disadvantages and risks. The security risks accompanying protecting PPI is identifying it in the first place and protecting it.
Lack of effectively protecting personally identifying information enhances privacy breaches within and outside the federal government. Since the information included in personal identifying information contains all the details about an individual, access to this information by other non-recommended people leads to privacy breaches of the person. This is definitely against the person's rights.
There is lack of adequate guidance available to assist organizations globally to categorize it according to the level of sensitivity. Organizations also lack the ability to ensure a privacy control of such information. The lack of such control enables internet hackers to easily access information about an individual, which is dangerous especially if the information includes financial details of the individual.
Ethical Issues in Information Technology
Information technology has several ethical issues that accompany it. An example of a common ethical issue is the breach if privacy. Social networks and personal identifying information make it possible to access an individual's personal and private information.In addition, some information passed across on the internet is not meant to be accessed by children of certain ages. It is, however, true that many children across the world get access to pornography through the internet. This is highly unethical.
Trends and Ways
The trends and ways of avoiding privacy breach on personal information using information technology will definitely include increasing the security in PPI to avoid the breach. Combating the disadvantages of information technology includes offering public education to people through the internet not to excessively use information technology tools as the cause addiction hard to counteract.
