Social Implications
The level of computer literacy one must achieve to gain an advantage over others depends both on the society one is in and one's place in the social hierarchy. Prior to the development of the first computers in the 1930s, the word computer referred to a person who could count, calculate and compute. In the year 2010, a mere 50 years later from its first personal/common business use, we see the term "computer literacy" change deeply in meaning. We have on one hand the exponential speed that technology has grown and is growing and on the other hand we have the practical use of the personal computer in our everyday life. Computers are not just the boxes that took up large amounts of space with an even bigger monitor. Now we have hand-held devices and cell phones to assist us, in most post-1995 model year cars, at least 10 processors can be found controlling major components of our vehicles.
Taking most common points into consideration from former forms of literacy topics, the subject requires a formal breakdown of the core components. To evaluate or maintain a consistently gradual rise in practical application and social productivity from any technology we have to understand how computers benefit humanity as a whole. Starting from the local sense.
The fear of some educators today is that computer training in schools will serve only to train data-entry clerks of the next generation, low level workers of the knowledge economy. On the other hand, some hope that enhanced computer literacy will enable a new generation of cultural producers to make meanings and circulate those in the public sphere. The wildfire of cultural production associated with sites such as YouTube seems to support this notion.
Different countries have different needs for computer literate people due to their society standards and level of technology. The world's digital divide is now an uneven one with knowledge nodes such as India disrupting old North/South dichotomies of knowledge and power.
Read more about this topic: Computer Literacy
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