What are the Personal, Social and Ethical Issues in IT ?

Personal Issues : An increase in work load and / or responsibilities can trigger job stress. Many employees feel information anxiety because other people are better than they in using computers, because they are slow in learning new technology and because of the need to continuously learn new things.

Exposure to terminals can cause radiation exposure which is associated with cancer and other health related problems. It can also affect eyesight. Other hazards are backaches and muscle tension in the wrist and fingers.

Social Issues : They are mainly positive issues. There is now flexibility in jobs that can greatly improve the quality of leisure time. There are also great opportunities for people with disabilities. Those who cannot type are able to use voice-operated typewriters or work from home. It has brought about major improvement in health care delivery, ranging from better diagnosis to research of new drugs, to more accurate monitoring of critically ill patients.

Ethical Issues : Many companies and professional organizations develop their own code of ethics. A code of ethics is a collection of principles intended as a guide for the members of a company or an organization. There are four kinds of ethical issues – privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility. Information privacy is the right to determine when and to what extent information about oneself can be communicated to others. The issues to be considered here are electronic surveillance and personal information in databases. Millions of computer users are being monitored without their knowledge. Information about individuals is being kept in many databases. Intellectual property is the intangible property created by individuals which is protected by trade secrets, patent and copyright laws.