What is a Computer and what does it do for mankind?

Earlier, when world had not involved into the use of computer this much as today, people used to perform the jobs that now we expect to get performed by our computers. Even some illiterate areas had no idea that what is a computer and what does it do exactly! Hence in various factories, industries, organizations and institutes, people used to hire the employees for various tasks to get performed but now only a few naive workers except technicians and experts are appointed to perform some specific tasks otherwise every job is performed by computers and machines. Certain applications and calculators have been installed to perform various jobs almost in every working environment. Though using computers, we don't even bother to think about its bad impacts on our life as we have been benefited tremendously from its everyday use. It’s true that computers facilitate us a lot; yet we cannot ignore negative influence of computer on human life.

What is a computer and what does it do?

Almost every one of us would be answering this question like "a computer is an electronic machine which can accept  input from us and give us an output; computer is a device which follows the commands of its user etc". Think like never before! Computers though invented by mankind but have got ahead of its inventors. They have been taking the place of an ordinary person in every field of life and ridiculously, we have empowered them to replace us. Thus it’s true that everything has some good as well as some bad impacts.

Computers; undoubtedly have some adverse impacts on our life as well. Few of them have been enlightened below.

Use of robots

As far as world is getting aware of what is computer science and how to build a computer, world is getting involved into technology. It seems like computers are taking away the sources of income from people. Good use of computer; though assist us abundantly, but one should also consider the other side of picture. Not every person in the world is a computer operator or a program developer. People use to perform many other tasks to earn their livelihood.

Predilection for using robotics in various industries and factories to perform several tasks is intensifying day by day. Restaurants also tend to get their jobs performed by robotics i.e. to get orders from customers and to serve the orders. Moreover in several other organizations, people prefer to get their jobs performed by robotics instead of appointing employers.

Over Internet surfing

It seems like world is going to say good bye to books within a few years as Internet surfing has taken the place of book reading. People have forsaken book reading. They prefer watching colorful pictures and motion graphics instead of reading some good material. That's what internet surfing provides us and books don't. We have stopped reading and started watching. People like to chat, comment, post and listen. These bewitching Internet features and uses have brought them far away from reading, writing or performing any other creative task.

It is a well known saying that "everything in excess is poison". Similarly, over internet surfing has leaded us towards its down sides. We are grooming in the field of technology and enhancing our life styles by utilizing the remarkable inventions of science but indeed we have got physically bounded to just type on the keyboard or point out the icons using mouse. Any healthy fresh activity is far away from our lives.

Uses of Social networking sites in our daily life

You are taking regular dose of social poison in the name of getting socially in touch with your so called facebook, twitter friends. Watching their status, knowing about what they are doing, getting excited about their activities on social media websites by giving them likes and comments is not making you happy but getting you stressed up by the feeling that they are more successful and happy in their lives than you. Haters are grown up and hypocrisy takes the place of show off. You instead cut yourself off from your true well wishers who cannot get your time due to immoderate uses of social networking sites in our daily life.

Getting away from nature

Our busy schedules of work have not left any time for us to get ourselves relax in a healthy environment. Moreover, our priorities have leaded us towards baneful activities. We even prefer to watch movies and play games in our free time. Sitting under a tree, smelling fresh flowers, taking in fresh air in morning, walking on the wet grass bare footed is more than anything else. Computers have taken us far away from nature. Now a days, people prefer to surf internet or engaging themselves into such social networking websites that have cut them off from nature.

Destructive for health

Health destruction, as everyone is aware of this disadvantage of computers. But in this sense we are quite unfortunate because we have reached to a stage that we have started depending upon computers completely. Today, not even a single field, institute, organization, company is unaware of "what is a computer". Everyone is utilizing computer in one way or other. Being conscious of negative effects of computer use on human health, we don't have the courage to even think to leave its usage or at least to lessen its utilization.

A brief Introduction to Computer along with its Components

Introduction to Computer

World has been revolutionized due to many wonderful inventions. These remarkable inventions have facilitated our lives so much that now we cannot even imagine surviving without them. Computer is one of these remarkable inventions that preserve our precious time in every field of life.

Today's world is the world of technology and no doubt, computer has added a lot into this technological era by transforming our hours into minutes and minutes into seconds. We cannot even imagine that in early times, when we didn't even think about such a marvelous invention, how human beings used to calculate enormous figures we are calculating today within no time. That’s all because of computers which have made our lives more than efficient.

What is a Computer?

We may find many definitions of computers. However the brief definition that people prefer the most is that computer is an electronic machine. It gets input, process this input and provides us an output. That's how most of the people use to give an "introduction to computer" by simply providing this definition.

The definition explains us a lot about the working of a computer, i.e. a computer gets any data as an input from the user. This data can be in the form of text or it might be a graphic, a video or audio. You might be looking for any explanation about data. Data is in fact raw material and does not provide any valid arranged information. This data given to the computer is now processed and is provided to the user in the form of some useful information which is called output.

Components of computer

During above discussion, when we had a concise introduction to computer, we talked about the working of a computer system which states that computer gets an input from the user, process it and provide an output. Now the question arises: "how a user will provide the input to a computer? How is computer going to process that input and provide an output to the user? "

The answer to these questions leads us towards the components of computer. A computer consists of following components:

·      Input devices

·      Processor

·      Output devices

·      Storage devices

·      Communication devices

Let us move towards the brief explanation of these components.

Input devices

Such devices that are used to enter the data into the computer are called input devices. This data, as described earlier can be in the form of text, graphics, videos and audio etc. Read more in "Input devices of computer system"

For example: keyboard, mouse, scanner, microphone etc. These are all input devices.

Most commonly used input devices are keyboard and mouse. User enters the text mostly using keyboard and points towards different icons on the computer screen using mouse.

The standard keyboard called QWERTY keyboard is most commonly used by desktop computers. Numerical data, alphabetical text as well as different symbols can be entered using keyboard. Also read: Different Types of Computer Keyboards and Keys

Mouse, on the other hand, is used to point out and click different icons on the computer screen. It thus gives input to the computer system in the form of clicks telling the computer system to open the relative file or document etc. Learn: Types of Computer Mouse and its use

There are many other input devices that are used by the user to enter important data into the computer. User can also enter any audio or voice data using microphone.

Processor

In reality, the introduction to computer is incomplete if we do not   discuss the processor. After the data is entered into the computer, now there is a need to process that data given by the user as an input. For that purpose, computer has a processor called CPU, also known as "the brain of computer".

As in a human body, all the functions are controlled by human brain, similarly, CPU, the processor, also controls all the computer functionality. The CPU process the data entered by the user and provide us useful information on which several decisions can be made.

Output devices

Finally, after processing the data into useful information, the output can be provided to the user through output devices. The main purpose of output devices is to show the output.

The most commonly used output devices are monitor, printer and speaker.

Just like input, the output provided to the user can also be in the form of text, graphic, video, audio etc

Monitor is commonly used to show the text, graphics etc on the screen.

Similarly speaker is used to provide the audio output. This audio output can be a song, a voice documentary or any other sound recorded through a microphone.

Another useful output device is printer which is used to provide the hard copy output. This hard copy can be a printed document or it can be a printed photograph etc.

  

Storage devices

It is very important to store the important data so that can be used and processed later. For that purpose, computer contains a very important component called storage device.

These devices are used to store the data permanently in the computer so that important decisions can be made on it whenever it is needed. An important example is hard disk which has the capacity to store large amount of data into the computer system. Similarly, usbflash drive can also be used to store data permanently.  

Read: What is a Hard Disk Drive used for? Hard Disk types

 Communication devices

Now a days, one of
the major purposes of using computers is communication. Computer system consists of such hardware components that are used to communicate the data and other information from one computer to another.

One of the major examples is modem.

Hence, we can state that a brief introduction to computer and a concise knowledge about the components of computer is something that everyone needs to acquire in today's world of technology.