Chapter 14: Current Issues in Technology

What We’ll Cover >>>

• Issues in Technology
• Impacts of Technology
• The Digital Divide
• U.S. Government and Digital Policy

Issues in Technology

Technology is ever-changing, and new advantages, concerns, and challenges come up frequently. Current discussion on relevant topics is something that instructors using this textbook can select and add to their own curriculum as the topics come up. This chapter will mention some issues that seem to be long-term, to be affecting the present (early/mid 2020s), and likely will be future-influencing. Some have been referenced elsewhere in this book, but are being aggregated here for timeliness and convenience.

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Part of automation (listed here). Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are processes behind the functionality of automation tools. Finding/developing the needed AI / machine learning algorithms for business is a challenge because this development is still in its infancy and affected by costs, need for more testing and long-term use, etc.
• Automation: Doing more with less, more efficiently, and for lower cost is always a business objective. Industries/demands like manufacturing, machining, auto assembly, packaging, and quality control, use automation to accelerate process, reduce cost, and increase employee safety. Mundane and repetitive forms of work are using more automation in the form of robotics and AI programming. Other businesses use automation tools to manage big data and work product inventory. Automation affects the normal operations of companies and employee training/workflow.
• Cloud solutions: Cloud networks provide space, support, ease of access, and data security for big data and business materials. They need dedicated support and service to integrate them into business operations and develop security contingencies. Businesses also need to move from legacy systems that are often incompatible with cloud-based technology.
• Data management: Employees need to securely access business data unique to their jobs to facilitate operations. Risks include various kinds of cyber attacks to access, steal, corrupt, and repurpose business data and work product. Employees’ use of multiple devices (computer, smartphone) can contribute avenues to outside access of company data. Businesses need data management strategies to minimize unauthorized access and compromised data assets.
• Data security: Data breaches are continuous and costly challenges. They affect the reputation, financial health, and competitive advantage of a business. They also affect the customers of the business, whose data and financial dealings can be misused. Continued creation and implementation of malwares, bots, and scam strategies keep this challenge active.
• Digital transformation: Organizations are tasked with developing digital integration plans for bringing business resources and operations into a reliable, secure, and future-facing system. Many businesses faced making rapid decisions and changes, which led to often unintegrated systems and uneven results. Others haven’t had the budget or the time/personnel bandwidth to do more than cosmetic change. Others have been forced into dealing with security issues quickly, but not much else. The US Government’s huge agencies still use many legacy computing systems that can’t keep up or scale with current and projected needs.
• Infrastructure: Major changes, like new server systems, computing equipment, digital security tools, and other IT infrastructure are expensive and disruptive. Employees need to work around changes, upskill, deal with updates and patches to new software and hardware.
• Integrations/Upgrades: Upgrades, patches, and integrations of enhancing technology are necessary, ongoing, and often disruptive to workflow and data consistency.
• Internet Of Things (IoT): The IoT is the name given to a set of technologies which allows exchange of information between two or more devices connected to each other through a communications network. It isn’t the Internet as we think of it, but a mini net for connected devices. Technology infrastructure in a business need to account for this as well as their overall technology plan and Internet-related network(s); otherwise, small but significant device and data insecurity can result. IoT devices can be accessed which can compromise business data.
• IT talent shortage: IT professionals are in high demand due to all the technology-facing infrastructure, data management, and networking support that businesses require. Some businesses have IT departments; others outsource, depending on cloud-based systems’ use. The availability of trained and experienced IT professionals may not meet demand.
• Remote workforce: Changes in workforce deployment to home offices during Covid has changed the consciousness of many employees about the work environment. Much non-industrial work can be accomplished in home offices and mobile locations rather than in a static business complex cubicle or conference room. “Work from home” policies have been evolving to accommodate the availability of employees, ongoing health concerns, and the lowered costs from needing less physical business infrastructure. At the same time, IT departments and business systems need to develop and manage secure, cost-effective, and efficient remote workplace support, like cloud-based solutions.
• Social media: Employee use of business time and resources on social media activities is a challenge. Business infrastructure and networks can be affected by insecure social media access. Time, focus, and productivity is affected if employees move beyond break and lunch-time use, especially since social media can be addictive and seems to require frequent check-ins. Company environment and product confidentiality can be affected if social media includes interactive streaming, taking pictures, and chats with microphone and cameras on. Even work-at-home environments can be an issue if the business network can be affected.

MedAttrib: webgrrl.nl, CC BY-SA 4.0. Art image of IoT.

Impacts of Technology

These are not exhaustive, yet they can be useful indicators of what we face.

Advantages of technology

• AI/machine-supported workforce.
• Continuous learning opportunities.
• Cost-savings from downsized physical infrastructure.
• Data-driven sales leads.
• Easy, fast and efficient communication.
• Efficiency improvements in inventory management and ordering systems.
• Employee productivity.
• Lowered costs (potentially) for consumers of care, support, and products.
• Mobility in enterprise/devices management.
• More efficient and automated manufacturing techniques.
• Robust and networked marketing and promotion options.
• Tech-enabled solutions development.
• Technology solutions providers with storage, security, and support capacity.

Challenges of technology

• Always “on” employees and burnout.
• Closures of physical spaces favor of online business.
• Continuous employee upskilling needed.
• Costs to replacing legacy systems and managing upgrades.
• Cybercrime.
• Data and cyber security risks.
• Hot zones of technology presence and energy needs.
• Increased dependency on technological solutions.
• Insecure communications.
• Jobs affected/cut.
• Malfunctions that stop workflow.
• Off-site and vendor-reliant data management.
• Over-monitoring and surveillance of workplaces.
• Regulatory and legal policies that are inconsistent/lack currency.
• Slow adoption/catch up – government, small businesses, legacy systems.
• Students/employees soft-skills and life-management readiness deficits.

Behavioral impacts of technology

• Mental health: burnout, anxiety, depression, attention deficit.
• Physical health: Sleep deprivation, sedentary lifestyle, repetitive motions, eye strain, lack of exercise.
• Preparation: Lack of support with learning and disability barriers, constant upskilling, reputation management, loss of personal data control, constant refocus on what skills are needed.
• Communication: Decreased in-person communication, fewer social cues, decrease in intimacy, lowered empathy, increased reactivity.
• Behaviors: Cyberbullying, rapid judgement, technology dependency, time-wasting, procrastination, distraction, cheating through technology, binary polarization.
• Security: Loss of privacy, cybercrime victimization, data inundation.
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MedAttrib: internetprovider.org, CC BY-SA. Hyperconnectivity / partial infographic)

ACTION: Quick Task – Technology advantages / challenges

• What are your top 3 most valued technology advantages?
• What are your top 3 biggest technology challenges?
• Do you ever feel that you can turn completely “off” from technology intrusions?
• Do you feel able to keep upskilling to stay current?
• What kind of technology-impacted jobs do you see affecting you in the next 5-10 years?

Digital Divide

Access to technology is a key part of how much technology can be leveraged and the lowering of costs for the people participating in it. Even now, in the first quarter of the 21^st century United States, we still face big challenges in inexpensive and available access to computing tools, connectivity, and systems. People are required to depend on technology for their jobs, education, access to products and services, communications, and socio-economic problem-solving needs. What happens when that access isn’t available, low-cost, or supported?

MedAttrib: Learning in the Digital Age. Infographic of Digital Divide.

Digital Divide: The divide refers to unequal computer and internet access due to socioeconomic & geographic barriers. It exists across the world, with different nations’ policies and reasons. It also exists in parts of the United States. The Pew Research Center indicates that statistically, it is experienced most by lower income persons. Non-white ethnicities seem to have lower adoption/access, as do persons in rural regions compared to urban regions.

The digital divide continues to persist in part because of:

• Access locations: Public locations that can offer broadband and Wi-Fi access can help bridge the access gap. These include schools, workplaces, libraries, community centers, café hotspots, and lobbies, and other shared community spaces. Many were closed during COVID and the resulting economic difficulties, which left a lot of users unable to access the Internet. Many remained closed if funding didn’t reappear to open them, or employees return to provide support. Other locations in rural and underserved areas of the country don’t have enough supportive infrastructure.
• Affordability: Personal costs are a problem for depressed regions which experiences job losses, underfunding state government services, and the general costs for equipment and Internet access subscriptions. Families don’t have the disposable income after primary bills and monthly crises are handled. \Add the lack of funding for expanding digital infrastructure and closures of public spots, and even minimal computer tech doesn’t have the Internet access. Smartphones don’t require broadband, so they are frequently used instead of other computing devices.
• Desire: Urban environments, with a lot of business and school presences, tend to need and use connectability and technology for daily life. Rural and underserved areas don’t necessarily have the same intensity of need, especially if the services and access has remained an infrastructure and cost issue. When Covid changed the in-person nature of education to home-schooling, a lot of families were left behind if the tool and access wasn’t available. Also, Covid education policy and response was patchy and inconsistent. Students/families who didn’t get support or continuity lost interest and felt “turned off” aby digital schooling. It will take time to collect and analyze data on how many students at what grade levels were irrevocably affected by and fell behind in school.
• Device options: A lot of academic and workplace functions still rely on the bigger power, screens, and storage capacity of desktop and laptop computing. Tablets and smartphones tend to work on smaller, lighter apps, a lack of keyboard and large visually supportive monitors, and space for multiple productivity applications. Yet, when it comes to access and costs, smartphones are often the only option for rural and underserved populations due to lack of broadband and more affordability to getting one for a family.
• Infrastructure: Large areas of the US haven’t invested in current and scalable broadband and infrastructure. Some is due to cost, some is due to State priorities of how fiscal support should be used, and some seems to be due to a segment of underserved people not considering this infrastructure as a government responsibility.

Results

In the United States, the digital divide of broadband access has affected students’ ability to manage schoolwork and career training. While smartphones have made access to digital services and options more viable, the divide still affects the amount of time, quality of school and work output, and the adoption of more digital services in life.

ACTION: Quick Task – Digital Divide and you

• What is a primary digital divide challenge you face?
• What affordability issues do you recognize in having personal access to the Internet and its resources?
• Where you live, what connection infrastructure challenges to Internet access do you face?

U.S. Government and Digital Policy

The United States has a patchwork of policy and law governing data privacy and digital access. There is has been no comprehensive federal policy, although several laws are on the books regarding privacy. Much of this was covered in Chapter 12.

• Digital Government Strategy: Formed in 2012 by the US Government, which aimed to develop common standards; ensure privacy and security, produce data in a device-agnostic way, and develop interoperable systems and security. It has been quietly managed by the U.S. General Services Administration. It is difficult to recognize what tangible impact this has had on U.S. policy, law, or funding of these standards in government agencies.
• Connected Government Act: In 2018, this was signed into law. It required that new and redesigned federal agency public websites to be mobile-friendly. It has also been managed by the U.S. General Services Administration. Its progress is also difficult to trace.
• Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets: Signed Executive Order in March 2022. The policy, which was informed by several U.S. government agencies, has a focus on protecting US citizens, financial system, and assets form digital threats.
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC): The FCC does not currently regulate the Internet, or censor it. It does require broadband providers to have transparent about offered services and consumer choices for speed, price, and network administration standards.

ACTION: Quick Task – Government and Digital Policy

• Does government (of any country for its own country) have a responsibility to legislate policy for digital privacy and security challenges?
• Should the private sector have a role in creating policy for digital privacy and security challenges?
• What are lines you think that a government should not cross in setting digital policy?