The Ecology of Media

The Ecology of Media : The Invention of the Computer

The invention of the computer has had an impact in North American culture ever since they have been released on the market. It is arguable when the first computer was invented, but to my knowledge, the first computer that resembled a modern day computer was mid-twentieth century (1940-1945).The original purpose of the computer was to calculate data that humans could not process and were massive compared to what we have access to today (back then computers were about the size of a room). The original purpose and functions of the computer have changed drastically, and are continuing to evolve even today. Back then, processing numerical data was a computers main purpose, and it had very limited functions. Today it is difficult to determine a computers main purpose and function, and it may vary well depend on who you ask. Since this is my blog, I will assume you wish to know what I feel the real purpose and functions are of a modern day computer.

I feel the sole purpose of a computer today is to have the ability to be interconnected to the world around us. It is amazing to think and hard for me to admit how I rarely use the computer for its original purpose. It seems aside from school work, I do very little that is productive on the computer, and I believe I am not the only one (I hope anyways). The computers functions have also drastically changed over the years. Its functions have come a long way when you realize how limited its abilities were in the past, compared to today, where we can have computers in items the size of a watch, and have computers in kid’s toys. In my opinion the computers primary function is to be able to access the internet. So many people depend on this function, which is why I would argue that a computer must be capable of allowing us to connect to the outside world. To sum everything up, the computer at one time had very useful purposes and functions for its time, where now we see the abilities are never ending, but all for stuff that is not so meaningful.