Computer is a menace, not a blessing

Got to do another composition for my student. This time, it's not a descriptive or narrative one, it's an argumentative or whatever you call it these days. I opted for a neutral stance, because life is full of grey, and not a lot of white and black.

I did it in 1 hour under 'exam' condition, which is during tuition time while my student is doing other work. Surprised myself when the word count is just 3 words short of the maximum word limit of 500 :) Looks like I've not lost my touch yet.

My hands still ache from writing so many words. Ouch. Computers make my writing hand less muscular, should have written it in, haha :)

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Computer is a menace, not a blessing. (Write within 300 - 500 words)


It is hard to find a household without any computers or access to the internet. In fact, even for those families who are not well to do, buying a computer might be one of their main priorities. Just what is the allure of the computer that makes it a common fixture in every home worldwide?

Since the invention of computers, these gadgets had been used by us to do a myriad of complicated and obfuscating calculations. With the invention of the silicon chips, a small personal computer these days has more computing power than the giant Cray computers which filled entire rooms in the past. With this explosion of computing power accompanied by the exponential decrease in size, each of us potentially have the ability to do calculations right at our fingertips. That surely is a blessing for us.



However, with this increasing reliance on computers, there is a fear that we might lose our ability to think independently. With the aid of computers, it is easy to crunch numerous data in a split second, but we still need a thinking person, all flesh and blood, to analyse the outcome of the calculations. Most people who use computers do not know how they function. All they know is that if they key in certain inputs, they can get the outputs. Are we putting in garbage into a black box and getting garbage out of it?

Internet makes the world grow smaller. With each person potentially able to connect to another person in another part of the world instantaneously, information can be relayed as the events unfold. During the first Gulf war in Iraq, reporters exploited this information technology to relay the latest news to viewers globally. Gone are the days we listen to delayed radio telecasts after the events had happened. With the use of internet, information is transmitted when the event is happening, not after it had happened. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes.

With this power of information at our fingertips, we must temper it with responsibility, otherwise chaos will reign. There had been cases of hackers infringing on the privacy of individuals and institutions and causing a host of mischief ranging from stealing, vandalizing to sabotaging. As the world grows smaller, our private space becomes smaller too. Skype, a popular internet voice calling software, had its lines tapped by Chinese government recently. Who is to safeguard our privacy when all we need to find out about a person is to ‘google’ him or her?

Computers, like all technological advances, are neither inherently good nor bad. There are always two sides of a story, and which side one chooses depend heavily on the individual. Computers increase our computing power, but would increase our reliance on it and make us less skeptical of the calculation results. Computer makes the world smaller through the inter connectivity of the internet, but it also infringes on our personal space. As such, computers are both a menace and a blessing.


(497 words)