The development of computers and their effects on society today
By Ben Firrell
According to the 2018 Census Bureau report about computer and internet use in the United States, over 90% of total households in the United States had at least some sort of computer. Over 75% of total households had either a desktop computer or a laptop. And over 85% of total households had a broadband internet subscription.
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After several court cases, Atanasoff was declared the originator of several basic computer ideas, however since the computer itself was such a broad idea, it was declared unpatentable, according to the Computer History Museum. Just over thirty years later, a United States Federal Court founded the ABC as the world’s first computer.
As time went on, computers became more mainstream and some people even took up building computers as a hobby. Dag Spicer, the curator of the Computer History Museum, brought up in an interview that one of the key components of computer history is the “Homebrew Computing Club”.
“Here’s a couple of new random nerds you might remember: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. They were two of the nerds apart of the Homebrew Computing Club. Now, Wozniak essentially built a computer to show off to his friends at the Homebrew Computing Club, and that computer became the Apple One. Each Steve then sold something of significant value at the time, Jobs his Volkswagen and Wozniak his HP 45 calculator, ordered a bunch of parts, and built around 200 Apple One circuit boards. They sold out pretty quickly and Jobs wondered if they could build computers for regular people,” Dag Spicer said in an interview.
“Immediately, Wozniak started on a design that within a year in 1977 became the Apple Two Computer, which is one of the longest-lasting computers in history at 17 years. … They had a few cycles, of boom and bust (sales), and the only thing that kept them going was the Apple Two. It provided a constant source of revenue for 17 years,” Spicer also said.
Following the release of Apple’s Apple 2 in 1977, Apple released its personal computer, the Macintosh, three years later in 1984. It was the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface, also according to the Computer History Museum.
Today, most people carry powerful computers in their pockets. More than 80% of the United States population has a smartphone, according to the 2018 Census Bureau report of computer and internet use in the United States.
In 2007, Apple released the first-ever iPhone, which held 48% of the U.S. Smartphone Shipment Market Share in the second quarter of 2022, according to a report conducted by Counterpoint Research.
While computers have helped revolutionize society in many ways, that doesn’t mean they come with no issues. Extreme usage of computers and staring at screens can cause computer vision syndrome according to the American Optometric Association. Computer vision syndrome, also known as digital eye strain, is when eye or vision-related issues occur due to excessive computer use. It can cause headaches, blurred vision, eyestrain, dry eyes, and neck and shoulder pain.
Excessive computer use also can create posture and back problems. According to Princeton University’s Health Services, bad posture and back strain caused by sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen for hours can also lead to other medical issues. Those other symptoms can be small as fatigue, muscle strain, and pain, or they can become serious issues like tendonitis, or even deficient function of organs located in the abdominal region.
Dr. William Lauretti, a chiropractor and member of the American Chiropractors Association, said that during his 15 years of owning his private practice, he had seen an increase in injuries from his patients’ musculoskeletal systems.
“My practice was in a mostly white-collar area, so I did see a lot of office worker-type people and yes, you know certainly sitting behind a desk full time, 40 hours a week, and so forth is pretty stressful on your musculoskeletal system. I’ve seen a lot of people who had neck pain, mid-back pain, headaches that come from their neck, and so forth. So certainly, that takes its toll, sitting in one place for a long period of time like that,” Dr. Lauretti said in an interview.
Most of those potential symptoms and injuries can be solved with rather simple solutions, such as turning down the screen brightness, getting an adjustable chair and monitor, or even wearing tinted glasses, according to the American Optometric Association.
Dr. Jacquie Bowen, who is not only a member of the AOA but is also the organization’s secretary and treasurer, said in an interview that she defines excessive computer use as any more than three hours a day looking at a screen from close range.
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realize is that computer use exacerbates dry eye because you don’t blink nearly as much when you’re focused on a screen as you do when you’re looking around in different directions,” Bowen said.
There are some people who think that the correlation between excessive screen time and declining social skills is more overblown than anything. Brigham Young sociology professor Benjamin Gibbs talked about how in his limited analysis of any correlation between social skills and excessive screen time, he couldn’t find an answer to whether it was a positive or negative correlation.
Gibbs and his coauthor, Ohio State sociology professor Douglas Downey, compared two nationally representative longitudinal datasets from 12 years apart. The datasets showed answers to “tons of questions about social skills and ask questions about screen time,” according to an interview with Gibbs.
“There is no mean difference in social skills from one cohort [of data] and the other across the 12-year period where technology really took off. … That’s not accounting for screen time. That’s just saying generationally, it doesn’t look like we’re going in an up or down direction in terms of basic social skills,” Gibbs said during the aforementioned interview.
Many experts agree that excessive computer usage and screen time does lead to some health issues, such as some of the examples above. However, the truth is that until a generation that uses technology on a day-to-day basis grows up, we won’t have viable data on how our excessive usage of computers affects our health in the long run.
The history of computers started in 1942 when Professor John Vincent Atanasoff received funding to build a full-scale machine based on the prototype computer he built in 1939, according to the Computer History Museum. The computer was called the ABC Computer, otherwise known as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, named after professor Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry.
“That’s excessive because that’s not something that eyes were designed to do. It’s sort of the eyeball equivalent of holding up or lifting weights for three hours a day,” Bowen said in an interview. When asked if patients have come in more often reporting eye strain in recent years, Bowen was quick to answer.
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“I would say [eye strain] has been escalating for the last decade, with certainly a steep escalation when the pandemic hit, since we all went to our screens more often. And interestingly enough, something that people don’t
The differences between laptop and desktop computers
According to the Computer History Museum, the first-ever mass-produced portable computer was the Osborne 1, invented in 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. However, the Osborne 1 weighed 24 lbs., making it much less portable than the kinds of laptops on the market today.
For example, Dell is one of the United States leaders in PC market share according to a 2021 report by Gartner. Their best-selling laptops usually weigh from four to six pounds according to the Dell website.
That is one of many ways that laptops have improved over their four-decade history. Now, laptops have become more powerful than ever due to the continued development of new technology. With laptops becoming more powerful year by year, people are buying laptops more so than ever according to statistics from IBISWorld.
The retail market for laptops in the United States in 2021 was worth $91.7B, up over $7B from 2020, and up over $20B from 2019, according to IBISWorld. The rapid growth over that two-year period can be attributed to many different factors. However, the biggest reason that laptop sales spiked during that period is due to the number of people working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although laptops continue to get more powerful, this doesn’t mean that they don’t also have some downfalls like any form of technology. According to Better Health Channel, the way laptops are designed causes more strain on the body than desktop computers. Since the screen and keyboard are so close together, it is hard to position the laptop in a way that doesn’t hurt either your back, neck, or shoulders. Better Health Channel recommends using a desktop over a laptop whenever possible to avoid the possibility of extra strain on the body.
Dr. William Lauretti, a chiropractic doctor who is also a member of the American Chiropractors Association, said in an interview that the main difference with laptops in comparison to desktops is that people can sit anywhere they like when using their laptops, therefore putting strain on different parts of the body.
“It’s more of an issue of how it’s [laptops] used … On one hand, you have a better opportunity to set it [laptops] up in a more ideal way. On the other hand, you tend to be a little more casual with how it’s used, and a lot of those posture setups are not very good,” said Lauretti in an interview.
While the world continues to become more and more reliant on technology, it is as important as ever to use technology as safely as possible. This is because medical experts aren’t sure what kinds of medical problems the generations who grew up with advanced technology will develop due to excessive use of technology. Dr. Jacquie Bowen, an optometrist and the secretary and treasurer for the American Optometrist Association, says that the excessive screen time that younger generations have could lead to loss of sight at much earlier ages.
“The people whom I am seeing right are 70 and 80 years old and are losing their sight due to macular degeneration. They didn’t grow up using the screen. They didn’t grow up staring at short-wavelength light. … What the heck is happening to those little retinas in toddlers, who are staring at their mom’s phone four inches away?”