Social Impacts

Television used to be the most popular way of passing the time, and it still is quite popular but now many young people now use the internet, using social network sites, instant messenger sites and playing computer games.

Since you can find information, services and products online, there has been a reduction of customers in some shops. As customers continue to use the internet shops will close down and leaving a negative impact on local communities. E.g. there will be a less diverse range of shops.

Legal Impacts

Since people create their own work and make it available to the public, copyright laws have been made to protect the creator's work. However, music and films are downloadable via the internet so it is easy to steal material in copyright.

Plagiarism is the act of taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. This is a particular problem in assignment work handed in by students in schools, colleges and universities. Quoting someone else's work and acknowledging the source of information is acceptable.

Global Implications

People in poor countries won't be able to buy a computer as it is too expensive. By not having a computer they won't have access to online education, economic development etc. There are people who have easy access to computers and there those who do not. This is known as a digital divide.

There are low-cost computing problems that can be resolved by using solutions such as one laptop per child and 50x15. This will help ensure that more laptops and computers will be sold and make sure schools have computers. So this will prevent them from missing out on work in terms of computer technology.