34. Telecommuting: will it change the world?

Telecommuting will have major effects in the worlds of work and family life. However, its biggest effect will be in the area of individual freedom, responsibility, and time management.

Work and workplaces will alter dramatically. Offices may become smaller, as fewer desks are needed. There will be greater need for high-bandwidth connections to link the office and the home, and even homes to other homes, as other employees and supervisors also begin working at home. Hours spent commuting, traffic jams, and fights for parking should diminish, as workers make fewer journeys or work staggered hours.

Family life will also change. Workers, both husbands and wives, can arrange their work around family commitments such as taking children to school, cooking, leisure activities, etc. However, households will also have to set aside areas for work - particularly if both spouses are telecommuting.

However, although the ideas of more time at home and less time traveling are attractive, there are some drawbacks to telecommuting. People may feel unable to escape their work, and may even work longer or more unsocial hours. The quality of work may suffer because of the reduced face-to-face interaction with other employees. There may be delays if other workers are not immediately available. Telecommuters may feel isolated or unmotivated, or insecure about decisions. A major change will be in the way people think about work as a place or an institution. Instead, they will focus on the task or product. Workers may feel less loyal to a company and more inclined to change jobs or work part-time or on contract.

In conclusion, the effects are difficult to predict because they depend on the extent to which telecommuting becomes popular. However, telecommuting could be the start of a major societal shift, possibly as big as the Industrial Revolution which created our present ideas of work.

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35. With the increasing popularity of computers and calculators, student literacy is decreasing dramatically. What are the positive and negative effects the progress of science and technology has brought about?

It has been widely noted that, with the growing use of computers and calculators both in the classroom and in the home, the level of literacy and mathematical ability of students is dropping. This raises serious doubts about the value of the progress of science and technology. Here I will discuss the pros and cons of this question. First of all, advances in science and technology have certainly brought about many benefits for mankind. They have made our lives more comfortable and healthier. In addition, they have eased the burden of work for most people and provided them with more leisure opportunities, while at the same time increasing productivity dramatically. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that technology has some negative side-effects. As mentioned above, with computers which check spelling, grammar and calculation for them, students have little incentive to learn how to do these things for themselves. Also, the availability of TV programs and videos encourages an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle. Another aspect of this issue is that technology may be good or bad, depending on how we use it. For instance, dynamite may be used to make road construction easier, or it may be used to kill people. Again, nuclear reactors can supply huge amounts of cheap electricity, but if they are carelessly handled they can cause devastating pollution. We can conclude that the progress of science and technology has both positive and negative effects. What we must do is to make sure that the positive ones are encouraged and the negative ones are eliminated as far as possible. Among other things, this means that students are warned not to let computers and calculators do all their work for them.