Do you see this trend as having a positive or negative on our society and economy ? explain .?

Question

computers are used extensively for tasks such as banking , communicating , etc .

Answer 1

Anything that takes cost out of virtually every task is bound to be a net positive as that increases productivity and standards of living.

Answer 2

Well, of course the reduction of transaction costs is a positive, as the previous answer-er noted.  However, there are societal costs to using technology so extensively.  

People no longer must call or visit face-to-face to discuss business matters (or personal matters), we just send an instant message or an e-mail.  It is difficult to establish a personal relationship with your neighborhood banker who could help you out in a bind because his job has been virtually reduced to entering a set of numbers into a computer, which will spit out "approved" or "denied".  Teenagers no longer have to go to common meeting places to meet friends, they can just go online and use social networking sites to "meet" new people, or spend hours chatting with strangers.  There is no real personal interaction in this behavior, although there is often the sense of making some kind of connection.

The fragmentation of our society into little pieces that do not need to personally interact could definitely be considered a negative.  To blindly say that "reductions in transaction costs are always good for the economy" discounts the role that personal relationships have always played in the economy.  So I do not believe the extensive use of technology is a "good" or a "bad" thing -- it is something that has benefits, but must be used wisely to ensure that we do not just become a civilization of formulaic drones.

Answer 3

Definitely a good thing.  The computers allow businesses to operate more efficiently, and generally help human workers work more efficiently, too.  Of course there will always be people complaining about machines stealing their jobs, but the alternative of using less-efficient humans slows overall economic growth (at least according to the Solow growth model, which holds up quite well against empirical data, so I trust its implications).