The Impact of Computer’s Use on

the Environment

A group report by Savior Engineers:

Ahmad Ali, Aqsa Intizar, M.Sami Khan, Faiza Saleem and Nuzhat Batool

Assignment of subject Development and Professional Skills

DATE: 07 February, 2011

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Contents

Topics Page Number

1. Summary 2
2. Introduction 3
i. Background
ii. Purpose
iii. Scope
3. Results
i. Physical impacts
ii. Social Impacts 4
5. Discussion on Results
6. Conclusions & 5
Recommendations
7. Acknowledgment 6
8. References
9. Appendix 7

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Summary
In this computers age we are utilizing a large number of technological devices
and benefiting from them. We should be known to the negative impacts that are
accompanied by our ease and relaxation that computers give. People working with
computers must be aware of the environmental impacts of them. Because the use of
computer and the Internet is becoming so common it is a basic need to know their
physical and social impacts on our environment.

Computers are a basic need of every business, industry and a student or

teacher. This dependence on computers and internet should not cross the limits.
Findings and results included in this report give a broad view of impacts of computers
to every user. The reader can find environmental impact of pollution due to high use
of computers. Recycling of PCs is a big problem. Only a little portion of computers
are recycled after their use or life limit. Many crimes or committed by using
computers and the Internet. Socially misbehaving and fraud is common on this media.
Harassment and pornography have become leading problems in today’s youth. People
are earning on the business of pornography. Theft, information security problem and
damaging reputation are some important side effects of using internet.
Building a strong patriotic youth, giving a complete view of internet to
students is the need of the day. Certain steps should be taken to build ideological base
and mental firmness. Misuse of social networking sites must be stopped. We should
make our children aware of negative impacts of these new and fascinating
technologies.
This study is a detail description of impacts that computers have socially and
physically in our environment. Information provided in this report gives enough
understanding to take step to save our environment from negative impacts of
computers and related devices. Internet use in today’s modern life is making
remarkable changes in the way we live. Many negative aspects have to be considered
while using the facilities of internet.

Taking away the computers and banning internet is not the solution. We
should work on a more consistent and gradual solution to problems. To our best, we
should reach at the root and stop the problem before it begins to spread.

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Introduction
Background
Nothing in this world is without prose and cons. Humans always work for the
leisure and relaxation. There are many tools to help do our daily tasks easily that got
new and better shapes and qualities with time and need. Our tools and instruments
with their creation purpose do carry some side effects. After long computational
knowledge history and electronics Computers came into existent. The world is
revolutionized. A tremendous change occurred in every field. With these changes and
help that these machines brought are associated many negative impacts. Due to the
charming view of a lot more facilities that computer provides the negative impacts
remain unnoticed. This study is conducted to make these impacts well known to the
reader and especially to the users of computers.
Purpose
The main purpose of the report is to highlight damages the use of computer is
making to our environment. The use of modern computes in all fields and the start of
internet by more and more people are making a new type of mutual dependence
environment-global village. With pollution problem of PCs, the Social networking is
also affecting the environment and changing people’s mind. Individuals and nations
need to give attention to these problems. Suggestions are made to take precautionary
steps at individual as well as national level.
Scope
Though the scope of the search was time limited but a preplanned data
collection method revealed good results. Impacts covered in this report are widely
penetrated in our society and world environment. Physical impacts include pollution
problem. New computers replace the old ones. These old computers pollute the
environment because only 10 % of them are recycled. The impact of internet on
cultures and society is very fast and amazing. A reasonable discussion from cultural
invasion due to internet to recycling problem of PCs is in the scope of the report.
Other daily life problems have also increased due to internet facility. New types of
crimes are committed with the help of Internet like thefts and hacking. Peoples mind
are being distracted due to wrong information on internet. Pornography and habitual
use of social networks is also a rising problem especially in teens. Above are some of
the significant findings of our report.

Results
The computer sale has increased around the world. In year 1990,130 millions
computers and in year 2002 one billion computers have been sold. Internet is
available to a large community even in underdeveloped countries. The internet has
spread to 180 countries and serving 120 million users that is 2% of entire global
population (Computers sale graph in appendix). All this mess of computers and
internet are making new challenges and producing many environmental and social
problems on our society.
Physical Impacts
It is found in a UN research report that all the computers cause same level of
pollution as the airplanes in whole world.
The environmental burden of computers on the world can be estimated from
this UN university report: Almost 1.8 tones of the materials including fossil fuels and
different chemicals are required to formulate one desktop computer. This energy is
much more than, to make a refrigerator or automobile. "For the manufacturing of a
normal PC approx. 30'000 mega joules energy are used."

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The production process of computer involves many chemicals which damage

the environment badly. For example, considerable amounts of brominated flame
retardants (BFRs) used in computer production. Computer hardware manufacturer
make use of toxins, carcinogens and oil-based paints in their manufacturing process.
People think that from the invention of computers the paper use is wiped
through out the world. But this is not the actual thinking, about nine tenth of printing
paper are just produced by these computers that we can not use or read.
It is evident that all computer hardware is responsible for the problem, for it is
the hardware's production that causes the pollution. Pieces of hardware such as
keyboards, monitors, mice etc are all made out of plastic which is usually not
recyclable. About 90 % of the computer accessories go to trash without recycling.

Social Impacts
Availability of information on wide range of topics from internet makes the
work easy for people of every type no matter its positive or negative (Internet use
statistics in appendix). Many negative behavior people do crimes with ease and in
new ways using technology. The Internet crimes have skyrocketed. Mainly, these
crimes include illegal stealing commercial secrets and unlawful transfer of others
funds. The United States, where the Internet was invented, the financial sector loses
$10 billion every year to the Internet crimes.
The Internet is being used as a tool to harm national sovereignty and internal
affairs. Dominant cultures impact and mix cultures in inferior positions. The Internet
being an English language culture further strengthens the culture based upon it.
There are a number of scammers on social networks who may try to steal or
use personal information; Information that can be used for potential crime such as
identity theft or fraud. Business companies are vulnerable to hackers and hecklers on
new found success.
We are going away from the actual world where we can fulfill our dreams. We
are wasting our daily life healthy activities because we spent too much time on PCs.
The most fascinating impact of computer is that they displaced the reality. We have
no time to meet our relatives and friends.
Since the last few decades of the 20th century, an immense industry for the
production and consumption of pornography has grown, due to the Internet. Amateur
pornography distributed via the Internet has become widely popular. The pornography
industry has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple
and Netflix combined.

Discussion on Results
Our approach required substantial data about physical and social impacts of
computers and the Internet on our environment, and we selected study areas that met
these requirements. From our perspective, there are obvious advantages to using study
areas where prior research has developed the required data.
Although we selected well-studied sites with excellent data sets, we
encountered problems with data availability. For example, we faced difficulty to find
data on impacts of use of computers on environment. Though, our findings and results
provided enough information according to our initial data collection plan.
The topics covered in results section are logically ordered. Some of the
significant results about physical impacts are non-technical. Most important physical
problem is the recycling of computers and other related material like keyboards, mice,
camera and USB devices etc.

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Teenagers and students are mostly affected socially by use of computers. They
spent too much time on social networking sites like facebook. There are about 150
million accounts on facebook (Facebook use graph in appendix). Social networking
has opened up many new doorways for cyber-crime. The people on social networks
who are completely new to technology, it is more important than ever to make sure
people are aware of the risks
Ever increasing pornography business as mentioned above is a big problem.
Clinical and psychological experts determined that pornography stimulates negative
attitudes and has negative effects for individuals and society and that it can impair the
mental and emotional health of children and adults.
Some of the important recommendations and significant conclusions are
provided in the following section.

Recommendations & Conclusions

Emergence of computers is the most important event of 20th century and
brought a significant change in our environment and lives. Further, internet changes
the way we do daily life routine tasks, the way we study, do business and interact with
people. Every one needs to know the impact of computers and the internet that have
negative sides too. Our study was directed to give a detailed analysis of these impacts,
discussion on significant findings and results, and giving logical and legitimate
recommendations to be considered.
Our society can improve its standard of living being positive in the use of
computers and can develop positive thinking using social media. On the other hand,
we can’t get the desired results if we put aside the negative impacts of these
technologies. Crimes related to use of computers can exploit the society. Furthermore,
they also have physical impacts on our environment.
Computers damage to physical environment is the pollution of production in
large number without being aware of the end-of-life results. New and high
performance computers replace and old computers which go to trash. Governments
should take steps to reduce this computer damages, one way to do so is by allocating a
certain percentage of money to the profit of computer production companies for
establishing recycling plants and for cleaning the polluted areas. UN University's
Ruediger Kuehr and Eric Williams, call for education programmes and bonuses to
encourage consumers to think about using second-hand PCs or to hand their old PC
over for resale.

Social crimes like misrepresenting, harassment, pornography or increasing at a

high pace. Our approach started from individual level impacts to national and
international environmental impacts. Impact of strong and English based cultures on
poor nations is making a difference in poor and rich people of those nations.
This virtual world of internet and social networks has driven us away from the
real relations and love of our families and friends. We need have a balance to using
computers and living life. Social sites can also be misused and we need to take care of
our privacy and reputation. Think twice about the way you use social networks.
Some important steps should be followed by our countries and policy makers
to keep safe our culture and minds of peoples. We need to strengthen our educational
programs on patriotism and socialism. We should keep up our mental firmness on
ideologies. Because one can get in contact with all sorts of information through the
Internet, some positive, some negative, so we must avoid arbitrariness in students. To

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accomplish such an educational task, we must rely upon constant work on students’
thoughts at the basic unit level.
To reduce the crimes related to information security and other monetary
computer crimes we should take various technical actions to reduce loss and leak of
secrets. First, we must protect the areas where sensitive data resides. Network servers
and databases must be placed in safe locations to make sure that unrelated personnel
could not reach them.
In conclusion, it is impossible to not use computers and be aside from using
the Internet to be totally risk free—closing the networks. Once the Internet is open,
the benefit of it will be accompanied by its negative impacts. Internet applications
have penetrated to all the aspects of our nation and to our military forces too. We
must control and to our best ability destroy its negative impact. For this we should
make sure that while we can fully enjoy the power of the Internet in our nation,
education, business and even military as well, we can also destroy the problem at its
root, before it even begins to germinate.

Acknowledgment
This report is prepared by joint work of our group members: Ahmad Ali, Aqsa
Intizar, Sami Khan, Faiza Saleem and Nuzhat Batool. Working with multiple students
on same results was an advantage because it allowed us to develop a more robust
approach. These efforts were time-consuming, although we feel they were very
worthwhile as they resulted in an improved study and more meaningful analyses.

Reference List

1.http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wp-
content/uploads/Facts_and_Figures_on_EWaste_and_Recycling.pdf

2.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153583/Social-websites-harm-childrens-
brains-Chilling-warning-parents-neuroscientist.html

3.http://www.residuoselectronicos.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Kahhat-and-
Williams-2010-Adoption-and-disposition-of-new-and-used-computers-in-Lima.pdf

4. cid:[email protected]

5. http://www.it-environment.org/index.html

6.http://www.raymond.cc/forum/general-forum/6501-what-is-the-effects-of-
computer-to-the-environment.html

7.http://www.optimum7.com/internet-marketing/social-media/dangers-of-social-
networking-sites.html

8. http://www.ictliteracy.info/rf.pdf/CiscoGreenICTreport2008.pdf

9. http://ilookbothways.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/

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Appendix
1. Computers Sale Graph

2. Internet Use statistics

3. Facebook use graph