User:Nfear79/The Negative Impacts of ICT on Society

The Negative impact of ICT on Society

ICT is part and parcel of our society now. We communicate by mobile phones. Email, Skype, FaceTime. Every aspect of our society has changed through the growth of ICT technology. We bank online, we shop online, and we work online. All these online activities and the widespread use of computers has a negative side as well. Living in the information age we have become less patient, less tolerant and more selfish. Everybody wants everything now, at the click of a button. We want information right now, we want to text right now, we want to Email right now, and we want to shop right now. We all want instant gratification. With the growth of the internet and everybody being online the growth in cyber bullying and trolling has also increased. Cyber bullies target their victims through mobile phones and online through social media web sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Many cases the victim is filmed being bullied or physically abused and then the video is put online on sites like YouTube. The increase in trolling behaviour where a person is targeted and provoked by trolls making inflammatory comments and controversial comments to get a reaction out of them. Trolling is usually done in chat rooms, forums or blogs. Sexting is also quite widespread amongst teenagers. Sexting is where an individual sends sexually explicit photos of themselves or sexually explicit messages to someone over a mobile phone.

With the growth in ICT technology the cases of fraud and cybercrime has risen up. Hackers steal a person’s identity and steal their personal information like credit card numbers and bank details. Phishing emails are widespread. Phishing is when internet users are targeted by email, phone or text messages to click on links that take the user to a fake web site with the intention of stealing personal information like passwords and credit card numbers. As the growth of ICT technology has bought many benefits and positive effects on our society, there are also negative effects like the growth in cyber-attacks like the WannaCry ransomware cyber-attack on the NHS last year which bought our healthcare system to a standstill. It was delivered by email, getting the recipient to open attachments in emails which then infects the computer with malware. Once the computer has been affected it locks up the files and encrypts them demanding that money paid in bitcoin, in order to release the files and be able to access them. Wanna Cry was a global cyber-attack affecting 200.000 victims in over 150 countries around the world. Computers all over the world were affected. It is Cyber-attacks like this which can cripple our society. WannaCry ransomware attack The WannaCry ransomware attack was a May 2017 worldwide cyberattack by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Many NHs trusts had to turn away patients with only those in need of emergency attention being treated. Staff at the NHS trusts affected by the Wanna Cry Ransomware attack had to revert to pen and paper methods to treat patients because all their computer systems were down. It is attacks like this which can wreak havoc with our society. Everything is online, so when a virus or attack like this happens all the computers in the network are affected, so the virus or cyber-attack spreads and before you know it bring our society to a grinding halt.

The wanna Cry ransomware attack is not one of a kind. As our society has become more online with businesses and educational establishments communicating through email and having access to the internet the possibility of attacks like this affecting us all becomes a very likely scenario. With businesses and organisations having their own LAN’s (local area networks) the possibility of hackers breaking into our networks and disabling the very fabric of our society like Trains, planes, the Traffic light system, CCTV cameras, communication systems all become a daunting threat. Breaches in online security happen quite regularly with the internet giants Yahoo announcing that 500 million user accounts had been hacked in 2014. Personal information like names, telephone numbers, and dates of birth, encrypted passwords and unencrypted security questions which could be used to reset a password were breached. This is not the only data leak at Yahoo. An attack in 2013 had compromised 1 billion Yahoo accounts. So we can see the nightmarish scenarios that can take place when our email accounts have been breached and our personal information ends up in the hands of criminals and fraudsters. With almost all of us having an online presence and having an email account there is no end to the damage that can be done when our email accounts get into the wrong hands.

So the examples outlined above demonstrate some of the negative impact of ICT on our society. Other negative impacts of ICT are that young people take less exercise, socialise less face to face and have obesity problems because they spend most of their time playing games consoles, texting on their phones, on Whats App and snapchat, Facebook and Instagram. Because almost all teenagers and young people spend more time glued to their mobile phone screens than talking to their peers, their family and their teachers actual face to face communication has almost disappeared. Playing outside or taking part in outdoor activities has reduced considerably with young people preferring to socialise on social media like Facebook and snapchat. Other health problems that have been exasperated by our online activities include stress, depression and social phobias. The Incidences of young people suffering from mental health problems has increased.

These are just some of the negative implications of ICT technology on our society. As our lifestyle is heading towards a 24/7 always online, on demand, always ready society we need to quietly reflect and weigh up the negative and the positive impacts of information communications systems on our society and what we need to do to find a balance where we enhance the positives and tackle and reduce or try to reduce the negative effects of ICT on society.