COMPUTER AGE AND COVID-19
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, all of our lives as citizens have nearly come to a halt. Students had to do online education along with the teachers as schools shut down, some workers had to continue working from their homes while others who couldn’t do the same were forced to readjust to this predicament we are globally facing by implementing other technologies into their jobs to cease physical contact as much as possible. So, what changes did the COVID-19 pandemic bring with the help of The Information Age?
Education and Accessibility
Education was one of the biggest problems during COVID-19. With the surges of cases, schools were closed nearly everywhere. The solution for that was the integration of online education, or some might call it e-learning. Though this was a step taken to protect the health of students and avoid new waves of surges, it took a huge toll on the section of students that didn’t and still don’t have access to technological devices to continue this route of learning. Since most developed countries had already been adopting new technologies to education even before the pandemic, it was easier for them to switch to online education. However, other developing countries have a lot of catching up to do and they didn’t handle well the effects of COVID-19 on education which set back the learning of students nearly a year or two while some countries didn’t even get to give proper education in the first place.
With the success received in most countries, online education is somewhat integrated to continue in the future in forms of more prevalent online courses and such. Even the emergence of hybrid education systems that combine online and traditional education is talked about.
Jobs and Work lives
Before talking about jobs and work lives topic under Computer Age and COVID-19 heading, it is essential to note that while some had the privilege to alter their way of working to COVID-19 friendly ones, the others had to continue as they always did even though the pandemic ensued, and they still do.
Well, what about the others? With the outbreak, most people’s jobs had to be readjusted to fit some standards in order to protect them from the outbreak which includes working at home jobs. While working at home, the only tie between the jobs and the employees was technology, be it phones, computers, tablets, etc. However, while most people just started to get used to working at home, it wasn’t late until some suggested that maybe this readjustment could stay even after the pandemic ends. Though it is a future assumption, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched with the order of our lives today.
The Bright Side
Though the pandemic did wreak havoc all around the world, there are some things that it actually contributed to. While schools had to close, people had to social distance, a lot of people suffered the illness, people had to lose their jobs, and so on; some changes it brought and continues to bring are just like consolidations. One of the instances is that with the advancement of online education, more people gained access to learning, and have been provided with countless resources online. Not only that, but with the changes the pandemic brought, people had to create new systems for their jobs to be able to easily get accustomed to working from home with their own digital devices. Thus, introducing new concepts to our daily lives that we wouldn’t have thought about in the first place by using online tools for their benefit, some even leading to much-needed new businesses. Some changes could even linger for the better.
Work Cited
Written by Cathy Li, Head of Media. “The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Changed Education Forever. This Is How.” World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/.
Parker, Kim, et al. “How Coronavirus Has Changed the Way Americans Work.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 25 May 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and the … — Cdn.istanbul.edu.tr. https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/1D654DB8B41945C1BB5169BDED8EE9B5.
