Impacts of Information Technology on the Family

In the digital age, new information technologies are emerging, which influences greatly the society in different ways. The impacts are both positive and negative. In this papers, the focus will be on how information technology influences the family, the parental issues and the eldercare. The second area which will be looked into is on the emerging ethical and privacy issues as a result of information technology.

I.T Impacts on the Famil

I.T has major impacts on the modern family lives. Beginning with the positive ones, it has enhanced connectivity among the family members (Yamashita et al. 2018). The current electronic devices, the smartphone, social media applications all help in Connecting family members living in distant places. The use of Skype and other video messages are the main contributors to this bond. Whatsapp and other social media sites also act as a huge family connector in the modern age of information technology, thus eliminating the barriers created by long distances (Belanger and Xu, 2015).

On the negative side, it has led to the separation of families. In a typical home, everyone is focused on his or her gadgets. Some watching movies, others playing games, chatting with friends, reading some gossip news, replying to emails among other engagements (Avgerou and Walsham, 2017). Consequently, the time spent together as a family is reduced drastically. In old days, families would eat dinner together, take nature walks, and engage each other in meaningful conversations, among other practices that enhanced the family bond. However, such things have now been replaced by virtual realities brought about by the use of the internet, where families are being connected through social media, online platforms and video links.

Lastly, many families are separating today as a result of new technologies. Infidelity has increased in the society, and when one partner discovers what the other has been up to, especially by accidentally finding a chat with another person, it ends up destroying such family as they start fighting each other.

I.T Impacts on Eldercare

In the new system, it allows the senior members of the society to communicate with their families from any location where they are being taken care of (Yamashita et al. 2018). The main means of communication introduced include video and audio call.

Another way in which technology is helping with eldercare is that there is introduced of new devices which provide the elderly with information and aids them in reporting emergencies (Avgerou and Walsham, 2017). Such gadgets monitor their movements and body conditions and report them to their caretakers.

Lastly, the Mobile cloud has also been of great impact to eldercare. Such technology enables one to be linked together with other fellow elderly people. Here, they are able to share information with each other, thus helping to keep them busy.

I.T Impacts on Parenting Issues

Just like the eldercare, information technology is helping the parents by Connecting different parents together thus helping them to share information on parenting tips (Deen, 2015). Over the internet, there is also plenty of information on proper parenthood.

The second impacts are that I.T has led to a decrease in the parent-child relationship. Children are focused more on their phones thus low concentration when being addressed or talked to by their parents (Deen, 2015).

Over the internet, there is a lot of information, some meant for adults, this has made the Children to learn things over the internet are of no benefit to them thus disregarding what they are taught by their parents.

Monitoring children online is a difficult task. It requires the use of sophisticated software which can restrict the contents that children are able to access especially on the social media. The evolution of online games is also consuming a considerable amount of the time for teenagers, eliminating their interests in the parental talks as they consider them boring.

Ethical Issues Introduced By Information Technology

Information technology has led to the emergence of new ethical issues. The first one is on Security. The rise of hackers who are capable of committing crimes like stealing money from clients is one of the ways through which I.T is an ethical threat to the modern society (Caron, 2016).

The second ethical effect is Copyright Infringement. As more and more people publish their items online, many people have taken the advantage of this to copy others people 2019s ideas. From online books, brands, fashion and other items and products posted have been subjected to infringement (Belanger and Xu, 2015). In the case of books and documents, it is a difficult task to regulate these items online. People copy and paste parts of the works posted and claim that it is their own doing.

Computer Crimes are also on the rise as a result of increased usage of information technology. Cyber-crime has been on the rise in the recent years. Accusations of elections interferences by foreign countries are some of the concerns in this sector. Other crimes committed include the Software Piracy, whereby hackers are able to steal companies software thus denying them the due revenues (Grunwald, 2015)

Another effect caused by an increase in the use of information technology is Job Displacement. Technological systems require small manpower (Caron, 2016). Consequently, many people have lost their jobs as they end up being replaced by machines.

Lastly, as more people continue to focus on building their profiles in the social media, it has led to the creation of a generation which is more self-centred. Instead of focusing on others, people are more concerned with their own lives.

Privacy Issues Introduced By Information Technology

On privacy, many companies today are using Internet cookies to collect private information from their customers. Such information is used in personalizing the customer experience (Grunwald, 2015). However, if the information is misused or shared with third parties, it ends up being a privacy concern. Such exposed information can impact negatively on the lives of people.

Hacking has also led to the exposure of personal data. Today hackers are capable of opening a person\u2019s phone or computer and extract private information from them, which can be used for blackmail (Caron, 2016). The modern technology has also enabled governments and other agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on people with an aim of spying on them. This leads to the exposure of private lives of people which is unethical. Companies are also spying on their employees, leading to mistreatment and favouritism.

Conclusion

The paper has discussed about the impacts of information technology on families, parenthood and eldercare. It also discussed the ethical and privacy issues arising from the use of information technology. In all the cases, it was found out that there exist both positive and negative effects arising from the continued use of technology.

References

Yamashita, N., Kuzuoka, H., Kudo, T., Hirata, K., Aramaki, E., & Hattori, K. (2018, April). How Information Sharing about Care Recipients by Family Caregivers Impacts Family Communication. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. 222). ACM.

Avgerou, C., & Walsham, G. (Eds.). (2017). Information Technology in Context: Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries: Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries. Routledge.

Grunwald, A. (2015). Technology assessment. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition (pp. 3998-4006). IGI Global.

Deen, M. J. (2015). Information and communications technologies for elderly ubiquitous healthcare in a smart home. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 19(3-4), 573-599.

Caron, X., Bosua, R., Maynard, S. B., & Ahmad, A. (2016). The Internet of Things (IoT) and its impact on individual privacy: An Australian perspective. Computer law & security review, 32(1), 4-15.

Belanger, F., & Xu, H. (2015). The role of information systems research in shaping the future of information privacy. Information Systems Journal, 25(6), 573-578.