Software increasingly underlies more and more aspects of our lives. - It is used to control the provision of essential services such as electricity, gas and water.
- Virtually all communication systems including traditional phone lines are largely driven by software.
- Every message sent across the internet, including email, web access, financial transactions and even many phone conversations utilise a variety of software systems.
- Most physical products use software during their design and manufacture and most electrically powered products include embedded software.
- Clearly the effect of software on society is significant.
Students Learn About: The impact of software - inappropriate data structures, for example the year 2000 problem
- computer malware such as viruses
- reliance on software
- social networking
- cyber safety
- huge amounts of information (which may be unsupported, unverifiable, misleading or incorrect) available through the internet
| When software is inappropriately developed or used the impacts have the potential to be significant. - Some problems are due to poorly developed software that includes bugs, other problems are intentional such as malware and other issues are due to unforeseen circumstances such as the year 2000 problem.
- Software has changed the nature of communication and the availability of information.
- Social networking sites allow us to share virtually any aspect of our lives, but the public nature of such information has lead to widespread concerns with regard to cyber safety and privacy.
The internet allows access to an amazing and almost unlimited store of information, but filtering and verifying the correctness of such a vast store of information remains an issue.
Students Learn To:
- recognise the effects of software solutions on society
- identify the impact of inappropriately developed software on users
- identify the effect of the inappropriate use of software on society and individuals
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