path: root/ang/readings/13/dokument.txt

As a student currently educating in high school, I have seen first hand the effects that the computer has on us. It is a powerful tool that is not to be taken lightly, and yet it is highly abused. The computer is a major form of influence on our young generation, and it is not all that good.
One of the dangers of computers is that they can be very addicting. In the beginning it was all fun and games, but after a while the fun gets old and we start to become addicted. We start to need it to do homework, to communicate with our friends, and to entertain ourselves. Soon we can not go a day without it. The computer has become such a big part of our lives that we will do anything just to keep it with us. We feel lost without it, because we are so used to having it around. The computer is so much a part of our lives that it is even used to make money off of us.
The computer is also a major cause of violence in our society. When kids are not using the computer to do homework, they use it to play games. Games that are full of violence and death. We have become so used to seeing it, that we do not even flinch anymore. This leads to a huge amount of violence in our society.
The dangers of big corporations influencing teenage lives via computers and digital technology for massive profit are with us on every step. Middle-schoolers are given smartphones, high-schoolers are given personal computers and adults are given workstations. This is all done for the purposes of education, entertainment and work, but that reason is there only as a cover-up to the real reason, which is to make us depend on all this proprietary technology. If it's not about the so-called vendor lock-in, it's usually about either mining user data or influencing us via paid promotion.
The customer never wins in a battle with digital corporations, so defense coordination is a must for survival. It's important to support the work of free software and reject the allure of many online services.
The computer is a great tool. It can be used to do so many great things. Yet it is a double-edged sword. It can do a lot of good, but it can also do a lot of bad. It is a tool that we must be in control of, not the other way around.