The computer is anything but a simple machine. It is quite like a sophisticated and complicated version of a calculator. While the computers were insanely expensive when they were invented first, once they began to be mass-manufactured, economies of scale were achieved, and the sticker prices came down pretty soon. They are now part and parcel of the human life and efficiently manage numerous tasks in various spheres of the society. They are routinely used at airports, railway stations, restaurants, banks and in many other places. The government, industrial, and private sectors are immensely benefited by these digital laborers, who are reshaping the present world and playing an instrumental role in the rapid progress of the human civilization. Possessing the knowledge and operation of computers is leading the twenty-first century, with profound optimism and hope for a better world without the vices of illiteracy, and also for a better future which will not be plagued by any disease.
Education
Schools and universities worldwide are increasingly using the internet and computer for imparting academic lessons in a visually interactive way to their students. Computer-enabled classrooms of today foster creativity and ignite imagination in the minds of the learners. Drawing aids, spreadsheets, pre-recorded multimedia, powerpoint presentations, etc. help the wards to learn more accurately and in a comparatively more exciting manner. That made way for a new business model in the field of education; which is known as smart classrooms, smart classes, or digital classrooms.
Very few would deny that education is the most significant thing in the life of an individual and computers reinvented the education system. A vast majority of universities including the ones from the Ivy League like the Harvard have now started to offer undergraduate, graduate (being known as postgraduate courses outside the USA), and even doctorate degree programs; in numerous disciplines including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), arts, commerce and management; and also various short-term free certificate courses under the MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) model.
Business
A computer with an internet connection helps people to start new businesses, run and manage them efficiently, and also expand them in no time. Big names of today like Google, Facebook, Amazon, LinkedIn, Alibaba, etc. all began their modest journey with a few internet-enabled desktop computers.
Daily business processes around the globe would come to a halt instantly if the computers cease to function correctly. Back in those early days, when Charles Babbage invented the Analytical Engine, more popularly known as the world’s first ever mechanical computer; it was solely used for the purpose of managing the business systems as well as accelerating the operations without any glitch.
Business houses and corporations use the mighty computer for planning and marketing their products, services, or both. The number crunching devices painstakingly record all the customer-related information and meticulously manage goods and services, etc.
Banks
Banks are utilizing computers on a daily basis to accommodate a multitude of demands from their clients. With the remarkable progress in cloud-technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, and big data; local workstations and the remote servers are processing and archiving abysmal amount of financial data that can be fetched instantly anywhere and anytime.
The Automated Teller Machines, or ATMs in short, also known as the Any Time Money fondly; they have successfully digitized the manual banking tasks to a large extent. One can perform a host of operations like withdrawing cash, printing mini-statements, depositing cash as well as checks, registering a new checkbook requisition, transferring funds; and also many other additional tasks like mobile and DTH recharging; or paying bills for electricity, life insurance, municipality corporation, etc. with the help of these smart terminals. Bank customers can also update their pass books in a separate ATM-like kiosk.
Internet banking has even eliminated the need to access an ATM physically! Furthermore; one can generate financial statement for any given period, apply for a loan, or a credit or debit, block them instantly, or even stop payment for an issued check using online banking.
Hospitals
Hospitals around the world install dozens of computers, or even more, to help the doctors as well as the patients. They maintain a computerized database for their patients with all the necessary records of given medicines, performed surgical and non-surgical procedures, etc. Specialists are making good use of computers to speed up the diagnosis of their patients. Rapid progress in the field of medical electronics has been the leading cause behind the invention of niche hardware devices, Decision Support System (DSS) enabled specialized computers, and robot surgeons that are used in RAS (Robot-Assisted Surgeries); they all have radically changed the path an nature of medical care; and significantly improved mortality rates as well as the quality of human lives. Computers are doing their very best to research complex genetic diseases for discovering a suitable cure, testing pathological samples like blood and urine, and also performing elaborate scans on the human brain or any other part of the body.
Sales & Marketing
Computer and internet technology has created new avenues to promote services as well as products on the World Wide Web. Digital marketing service is playing a pivotal role in the domain of electronic commerce Companies can now create and publish static as well as dynamic contents for promotional purposes. And it is not just the corporates; any individual with an entrepreneurial spirit can market and sell their products, services, or both on popular online marketplaces like Amazon. The traditional channels and models of the trade like B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer) holds true for the web too. Businesses can bank on the PPC (Pay per Click) model to quickly recover the funds spent on electronic marketing. Graphic designing for web portals, search engine marketing and search engine optimization, content creation and management, and also marketing in the social media like Twitter and Facebook are fuelling the growth of online businesses as never before.
Conclusion
Computers are literally indispensable to most people in modern times. They are influencing the habits of their users in both positive and negative ways. People are forming new behavioral patterns, such as listening to songs on their personal computers, doing outsourced works online at the comfort of their homes and earning a living, delivering academic lectures and study lessons online, communicating and keeping touch with family, friends, relatives, and co-workers like never before, meeting new people in the internet and making virtual friends, shopping for grocery, buying tickets for air or rail, and even searching for love on the World Wide Web, and what not!