Quality of Life Issues in Relation to Computers and Information Systems

There are several quality of life issues when it comes to computers and information systems. They range from blurring the lines of work and leisure to loss of employment due to the technology. I'll be focusing on four quality of life issues: maintaining boundaries, dependency and vulnerability, computer crime and abuse, and employment.

The first of the four is “maintaining boundaries.” This quality of life issue is critical because it completely blurs the line of work and leisure. There have always been professions that primarily work from wherever they can, like journalists for example, but with where technology is it makes that process so much easier. Especially with the advancement of smartphones, no matter where you are or when, you always have the internet at your fingertips. Personally, this has been a major issue in my life. Whether I am looking something up on google, or scrolling through social media I tend to be completely involved and oblivious to everything going on around me. This goes for me and my husband. It can be as simple as me asking him to look at the weather so we can dress our kids appropriately. From there it can snowball to seeing where the rain is coming from, then tracking the storm, and next thing you know you're on YouTube watching videos from hurricane Dorian. From an ethical standpoint, I think this would be frowned upon. Any company would gladly accept any “off the clock” work as it doesn't affect their bottom line, but more and more we are seeing the “work life balance” diminish. That in itself could be considered unethical.

The next quality of life issue is the fact the we depend on these computers and information systems, but even worse, we are vulnerable to them. For example, the national power grid, the telephone system, the radio, television or whatever public utilities are out there. These are all running off of computers and information systems with no failsafe behind them. If any one of these failed, or was sabotaged it could be catastrophic. Although I don't have an exact personal example, there is a movie called “Live Free or Die Hard.” In this movie, John Mcclane must stop cyber terrorists from enacting a “fire sale” in which key elements of the nations infrastructure would be destroyed and disabled. From an ethical standpoint, I feel like this would also be frowned upon. Obviously, attacking the nations infrastructure would be frowned upon, but just the fact that we rely so heavily on these things with no backup plan could also be frowned upon. Yes, these systems are in place to make our lives more enjoyable and easier, but just the fact that one chain reaction could make life hell is mind blowing.

The third quality of life issue is computer crime and abuse. This speaks for itself. With the advancement of computers and information systems there are new and improved ways to attack people and attempt to steal their information. Obviously this means there could be several new ways to protect people, but we are all so inundated with scams and theft that we are so slow to trust anyone or anything in this digital era. Personally, I've had my bank card information stolen, and to make matters worse, it's not even a card I use for anything other than bills online with whatever institute i owe. It wasn't a situation where my info was stolen by a skimmer at a gas station, but the institute itself would have had to have been compromised which is very scary. This is obviously very unethical on many fronts. People can use technology to get themselves “ahead” in life by just sitting behind a glowing screen. At what expense of others though? Thats the real question. We should all be working together to make this world a better place, but there will always be the people that dont want to work for anything and get ahead in life regardless of how it affects other people.

The fourth quality of life issue is simply employment. Computers and information systems can do so many things, and this includes a lot of jobs that humans are currently doing. The biggest field that has been impacted is anything that is conducted in a factory as factory jobs are the ones that have been replaced the most. Thankfully this hasn't affected my personal life directly, but it is wreaking havoc across the nation in the form of unemployment. So many jobs these days have been automated that it is certainly affecting the unemployment rate, but thankfully a lot of companies are coming up with other jobs for people so that doesn't happen. It starts out as an ethical problem, but then kind of redeems itself in the long run.