Over the past decade, computers and modern technology have played an integral part in the way our society operates. Everywhere we turn there is indication of the advancement and innovation streaming in today's society. The composition of the world surrounding us solely depends on the emulation of the world around us, in order to keep up with the ever-changing way we operate as a whole. The entire world is dependent upon that which we created from our own minds and hands, whose sole purpose is to mimic the way we act, yet do it more effectively and more efficiently. What are the major factors in advancing our society far beyond the comprehension of the public mind? Time, and money. We live in a society where the only key elements in succeeding are making or doing more of what we do, in less time than we do it. End result: Greater profits.
But is this really the way we should be living our lives? We place all of our dependence in machines, which we have developed to take the place of'us, the people who developed them.
During the next few pages, we will examine the effects of computers in our society. Their positive and detrimental effects on people, and the way they operate within a given community.
Thanks to the growth in computer capability and capacity, television and computers are merging into digital streams of sounds, images, and text that make it possible to become absolutely brilliant with information. The advancement in technology allows for the awareness and continued public support. Messages and ideas are carried in a far more efficient way, meaning people choose to listen to them more readily. In 1438 Johannes Gutenberg wanted a cheaper way to produce handwritten Bibles. His moveable type fostered a spread in literacy, and advance of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of the industrial revolution . Although most of the time technology changes at far too gradual a rate, slipping past our fingers, causing us to move on, and carry this new technology with us, seemingly in the same form as'the former. Technological advancement has been know in the past to trigger a more in depth look at things, and a brighter, better way to see things in a different light, although what has it done socially for us?

We as a society have become so incredibly spoiled with our ever-advancing technology, that we too have immersed ourselves in it as well. Slowly we have been cutting ourselves off from our peers, friends, relatives, and the world around us.

It began with the telephone. A new and innovative way that we could talk to our friends and loved ones from great distances, while the calling and receiving parties were both in their own homes. Then came the radio. A new and innovative way to listen to the sounds of other cultures, and those tunes we loved, that we could now hear from our own homes. Then came television, a new and innovative way to experience the sights and sounds of the world from our very own homes. And finally'the computer. A new and ever-changing innovative way to experience everything the world has to offer, from shopping, to banking, to television and radio from our very own homes. Slowly but surely we have enclosed ourselves in this little hermit-like shelter we call 'our homes'. This excuse for bringing us closer to the world around us has only entirely isolated us from it. We think we are getting closer, but with each step forward into the future, we take two steps backwards.

Let us look at one aspect of change that has been slowly occurring over the past decade or so, and will probably take another decade to complete, the transfer of data and products. Up until the present time products, and shipments have been calculated in mass. A product would travel miles and miles clear across the world, documents, CDs, music, information, books etc. to reach its final destination. Its' cost would be calculated in how much it weighed. However, with our drastic change in technological advances more mediums are transferred through the computer, and the Internet than ever before. The world is getting smaller by the minute. The change of exchange from atoms to bits is irrevocable, and unstoppable.

Why now? Because the change is also exponential ' small differences of yesterday can have suddenly shocking consequences tomorrow.

You have probably heard that if you payed an employee a penny a day, and doubled it every day, your employee would be making $10 million by the end of the month. Although if the month were only three days shorter, your employee would only be making $1.3 million. When an effect is exponential, those last three days mean a whole lot. We are now approaching the last three days in the spread of computing and digital telecommunications.

In the same fashion 35% of American and Canadian families, and 50%of American and Canadian teenagers ...