Computers are life-savers

How can we use computer and communications technology to minimize the effects of calamities such as earthquakes and super typhoons?

Natural calamities and even disasters caused by man are inevitable, but closely responding to them when signals of proximity increase can still be helped through the power of technological innovation. It seems today that all can be answered through the help of computers and communications technology. Human beings are geniuses, therefore nothing shall hold us down, not even the wrath of Mother Earth.

Let us take for example the most recent devastation Central Philippines met: Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). Days before, PAGASA notified the country of a very fierce typhoon coming our way capable of inducing a storm surge. Just by this, we can formulate a lot of questions already. (1) How did PAGASA become aware of this super typhoon? (2) What in the world is a storm surge? There is only one answer for these: computers.

Government agencies like PAGASA, though not state of the art, depend highly on the functions of computers and technology to monitor the forming, movement, and what-have-you of natural phenomena from low pressure areas to super typhoons, and by PHIVOLCS  from volcanic eruptions to earthquake intensities, and so on. The second question is answered when one look it up a search engine through a computer. Confusion was one of the reasons why residents in the affected areas have not prepared as much as they should have.Through computers and communications technology, there will be awareness promotion spread throughout. As long as internet connection is provided and phone signals are strong, then people should have no excuse to not know what to do during calamities.

By now you can tell that without the invention of computers and communications technology, things would have been worse and totally out of hand. Nobody could have the least bit prepared for it, people could be leisurely spending their time at home without any preparations whatsoever. Those affected, without cellphones and recording devices, could not have let the whole world encounter the real deal during the typhoon's landfall. And after that, relatives lost could have never been found if telecommunication companies and news outfits didn't cover them.

We have a lot to thank computers for. Some lives may not have been saved when the need arose, but a multitude more have been spared because of this heaven-sent technology.

Importance of becoming computer literate and computer competent

In this ever changing fast-pacing world we live in, a person would be called nonexistent in a few years' time if he has no traces in the digital spectrum. Of course, being computer literate starts once a man finds interest in it, regardless of age and status. My parents, for example, are embracing the magnificence of the new technology even when they only know the basics. No one is exempted from not learning how to operate a computer. In this digital age, one is left behind and will be missing out on lots of opportunities if he is afraid of exploring a 'complicated' device of softwares and viruses.

A computer literate and competent individual means he has sufficient knowledge about the patterns of a computer. He is familiar in writing documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and the like. He has several accounts made in the social media world with creative usernames and numbers in them. He is aware that downloading free stuff on the internet over torrent or whatsoever is illegal and is called stealing in layman's term. He makes sure to log out his personal account when in a public computer because hacking is a dirty business to face. He also resists clicking on popping messages that congratulate him for being the 70,093,260th visitor and therefore wins the Empire State Building.

Knowing all these and more entails one to be computer literate and competent in using it as almost everything we encounter everyday is produced with a computer. A person who is computer literate has a large advantage over somebody who isn't. More job opportunities will be open for this person, thus promoting him from whatever career path he may have gone to. There will be no excuses not to communicate to another and be informed in the latest happenings because it is just literally a few clicks away. We may not know how to assemble a computer per se but what is important is to learn the twists and turns in a device such as a computer.