What Effects Has the Computer Had on Our Lives? The twenty-first century is already turning out to be the century of the computer. The computer revolution that started after the Second World War is now developing exponentially and computers are beginning to influence and take over nearly every aspect of our lives. Computers are clearly changing and affecting society in many ways. The two main areas in which computers have brought about a profound change in our lives are in the economic field and in the field of communications. The computer has led to immense changes in economic and business life.
First, businesses now have to be computerized or they risk failure. Every big corporation bases its operations on computing, regardless of which sector they are in. For example, Coca-Cola, the BBC and Levi’s market and sell different products and services, yet they all share one basic property – without computers their operations would collapse. Second, computing is an economic dynamo. Japan, China, India and many other countries have large IT sectors which drive their economies upwards. Furthermore, the developed world is moving from an industrial-based economy to a computer and IT-based one. It is not just in business that computers have affected us so profoundly; communication has been revolutionized totally. First, whereas before, people wrote letters, which would often take weeks to reach their destinations, or speak on the phone, which was terribly expensive,