ICT: What they are and examples

It is often spoken of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to refer to the set of knowledges, practices and tools related to the transmission and consumption of information, developed from the last decades of vertiginous technological change, since in 1969 the Internet entered our lives.

However, the concept of ICT is at least blurred, since it is used in a sense similar to that of "the information society", to refer to a change in the informational consumption paradigm, affecting areas as dissimilar as leisure, formal education, interpersonal relationships or corporate finance. For example: videogames, electronic commerce, digital newscasts.

The emergence of these new technologies has thus developed new forms of commercialization of productsas well as possible new products and services. Also alternative forms of information flow that do not always go through formal and controlled channels, such as piracy, or peer-to-peer (p2p) services. All this at great speeds and overcoming physical and geographical borders through a process of globalization known as the globalization.

Advantages and disadvantages of ICT

The virtues of this type of technologies are easy to detail: speed, agility and massification of the information flows, to the extent that users from different parts from the world can connect with each other from their computers and other specialized devices to converse, confer, send documents or share files.

Thus, the information that was previously contained in books, specialized services and traditional research sources, today it is It is dispersed in the network and circulates much more freely and democratically, although also in a much less systematic.

Finally, these new ways of communication They have opened specialized fields of work and new areas of unsuspected human performance, such as business Community Managers or the various forms of remote work. In interpersonal relationships they have also left their mark, allowing new forms of virtual exchange and interpersonal relationships that do not perceive distance as something insurmountable.

However, all this has also brought consequences not necessarily positive, such as the dispersion of information, accessible outside of strict cataloging and legitimation systems knowledge, which allows premature, improper or naive access to content, for which a certain margin of preparation would often be necessary. For example, many people search for medicinal answers on the Internet and undertake alternative treatments without bothering to go to a specialist doctor, exposing yourself to any type of risks and misinformation.

On the other hand, the degrees of exposure and permanent connection that these new technologies have imposed on our lives have many psychological consequences in our lives. population: technological addictions, social isolation, cultural autism, and even risks of exposure of sensitive information before the gaze of strangers.

The great problems of the computerized era have to do with these matters and with the protection of information, as well as with the necessary limits in the hyperstimulation generations to come, accustomed from childhood to interacting with gadgets technological and communication.

There are many instances that advocate a model of regulation and even censorship of this type technologies, which can also be used for school research or to achieve pornography. Some actors suggest that the answer lies in the way we educate ourselves for its use.

ICT examples

1. Video game. Although it may not seem like it, the leisure and entertainment industry is one of the central pillars of technological and communication development. The growth of gaming platforms, from rudimentary wired TV consoles to entertainment software, is pushing the industry towards exploring new forms of connectivity, establishing communities and artificial intelligence.
2. Instant messaging services. Another of the most sought-after and most popular aspects of ICT has to do with instant communication, either through email messages. text on the cell phone or more complex services over the Internet. One of the great values ​​that these new technologies seem to obey is to keep human beings in constant and rapid contact with others.
3. E-commerce. A branch in constant growth since the appearance of the Internet has to do with the so-called e-commerce, both wholesale and retail, which has allowed greater proximity between buyers and sellers through specialized forums, virtual stores and communities of merchants. Today it is a sector that generates large dividends worldwide.
4. E-Government. An upward trend is the incorporation of the Internet and communications into the state bureaucracy, thus providing new speeds and comforts in these procedures. On the other hand, good ICT management allows any government or state entity to offer a greater range of transparency and social control to voters.
5. On line bank. Computerized banking services and virtual financial services platforms became so popular in such a short time that banks are rare today without them. Why waste time going to the bank branch when we can enter a website or, better yet, an application on our Smartphone and carry out our operations?
6. Information search. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing are perhaps one of the most popular tools demand of the digital world, since they serve as mediators between the user and the universe of available information. The popularity margin or the contracted services will also depend on the place that a web page occupies with respect to the others in a search for a specific user.
7. Peer-to-peer services. This model of packet data and information transfer communities and services became very fashionable after the success (and scandal) of “Napster” in the 1990s. Normally at odds with the classic approach to copyright, these “sharing”, That is to say, sharing data from one user to another, are an example of the freedoms that the information society entails.
8. Email. Postal mail was quickly displaced by electronic mail, which requires no paper or stamps but an account (usually free) on an email server. This allows us to send and receive information of various kinds and is the most basic mode of communication on the Internet.
9. Digital newscasts. The paper newspaper is increasingly migrating towards digital, offering its readers the option of staying informed by visiting a web page, application downloads on a Smartphone or similarly fast, comfortable and versatile processes, unthinkable 100 years ago when the newspaper was at its peak world.
10. Subscription television. Television, although at a clear disadvantage with Internet media services such as YouTube, remains solid as one of the key informational and media consumer services in the era of new technologies communicational. However, its lack of interactivity, a key concept in this age, seems to be its lame leg.

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