Some people carry on active social lives with computers – their own or the ones available at terminals in public places like cafes, social centers and libraries. Communicating with others on electronic bulletin boards or in chat rooms, computer users can get to know people they might never meet in traditional ways. Some look for potential dates or mates by computer: they might place personal ads with photos on the screen or produce digitized video segments for their Websites. With webcams, two people with cameras in their computers can see and talk to each other from separate places.
With modern telephone technology, most people stopped writing letters – especially personal letters and notes. But now, writing to communicate has returned in electronic form – e-mail. When a computer is ready to “mail a letter”, it dials a server – that is, a central computer that collects and distributes electronic information. Delivery time from the sender to the receiver is no more than a few seconds, even from one country to another. For some computer users, the wish to communicate intelligently or creatively with others makes them want to write better.
Computer technology has also made it possible to run a house electronically. From turning lights on and off on a regular schedule to starting the coffee and cooking the hot cereal, computers are taking care of people at home. Many modern machines (e.g. kitchen appliances) contain computer chips that allow their owners to program them. For instance, you can “instruct” a microwave oven how to cook a certain dish. You can program your electric or gas range, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer to “do the housework” on their own. Most entertainment equipment operates with computer technology too: some examples are radios, television sets, DVD players, which can be set up electronically to go on and off, go to certain channels or stations, and record specific programs at certain times. Computers can even start cars automatically so that on cold winter mornings you can get into a warmed-up vehicle and drive off. And of course, the typical U.S family has a PC (personal computer) in their home, which they use for everything from keeping household records and writing letters to playing computer games.
Largely because of the computer, technology continues to advance in the medical sciences. One example is the use of computer information in an ambulance before a patient even gets to the hospital. Emergency medical technicians can attach small sensors (i.e. devices with cables) to the patient (e.g. a heart-attack victim) to get information about electrical activity in the heart and the brain. By radio and computer, they can send the information to the hospital so that medical specialists can get ready for the patient’s arrival. In the meantime, technicians can get advice on how to keep the patient alive. Later, doctors can look into the patient’s body in new ways – not only with X-rays but with CAT (computerized axial tomography) scans and DSA (dynamic spatial reconstruction) scans that photographically “slice through” an organ from any or many different angles. Other methods of collecting medical information are based on sound (sonography), temperature (thermography), radio waves and radioactive tracers, tiny cameras that patients swallow. Technology extends to new surgical procedures as well: for instance, with cameras and lasers (devices that produce very narrow beams of light), surgeons can do heart surgery through tiny holes in the chest, they can do surgery on babies even before they are born.
Although much of technology in our everyday lives has positive effects, there are some uses that raise controversial issues and questions. For example, are interactive media (i.e. a combination of television, telephone and computer) going to control minds, destroy privacy, and cause people to forget about family life and personal relationships? What effects will the genetic engineering of foods (e.g. changing the gene structure of fruits and vegetables) have on people's health? High-tech medical treatments (organ transplants, changing the gene structure) can increase the longevity of individuals, but can they improve the health and happiness of human beings in general? Only time will tell, but. in the meantime, science and technology will continue to move forward.
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