A computer-driven society is one in which computers have transformed the lifestyle for the majority of people. Technology has increased the communication and information options for most people. Many people choose to work at home in front of a computer screen. Today, computers play a huge role in molding the attitude and approach to work and leisure, the way people interact with each other and the way they think about their careers. Telecommuting, video recording, voice mail, and computer-aided instruction are but a few of the innovations driving these transformations. In this computer-driven society, computer time is less expensive than people’s time (Phillips, 1992). Low prices, attractive interfaces, and speedy interaction now let the computer support the major needs such as medical imaging tomography, simulation, etc and minor needs such as fuel injection, booking tours, keeping calendars, placing phone calls and correcting the grammar in a document of individuals, in real-time (Phillips, 1992).
Computers have successfully evolved into versatile tools in interfacing with communications and data-acquisition devices. According to John Browning, in The Economist, computers can act as assistants, advisors, and communicators and contribute towards enhancing three major functions: productivity, competitiveness, and responsiveness. Productivity is increased by computers as they reduce headcount; competitiveness is increased by building databases on customers and competitors and streamlining the information package for every consumer product. Finally, computers increase responsiveness, through their capabilities to adapt to the changing needs of customers and employees. However, social transformation in various areas is predicted by different people. In Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in The Electronic Age, Paul Strassman (1985) holds that computerization will make work more varied, interesting, and flexible. In contrast, in Work Transformed, Harlie Shaiken (1986) argues that computerization increases managerial control through fragmenting and deskilling jobs. In, the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power, Shoshanah Zuboff (1988) describes case studies of clerks and blue-collar workers all of whom found their work made more abstract, confusing, and socially isolating after computerization projects. Generally speaking, computer-based technologies have been found to be potentially socially transformative (Kling and Iacono 1990). They can help in restructuring major social relationships — interpersonal, intergroup, and institutional through the management of information. Computers are today used in a wide range of activities such as international fund transfers to supermarket checkouts, from spacecraft controls to automobile warnings; there is even a proposal for guiding the blind via computer-coordinated and interpreted transmissions from computer-controlled Global Positioning Satellites. Increasingly, business, social, and even personal rules and structures are being altered to better comply with the formalities and restrictions of computers and information systems. Thus, computers seem to be taking over the conduct of human affairs. They are reshaping the world and lives of people through the world through long-term and indirect effects they exert on social and organizational forms and through the new kinds of dependencies that are thereby created.