Osobní počítač – jeden ze symbolů modernizace

Personal computers are a characteristic element of modernization, having become a usual part of the equipment of workplaces and gradually evcn of domeslic life. The research projed, „The PC and Human Potential“, is based on an analysis of the impacts of the introduction of computer technology from the point of view of various scientific disciplines, and it identifies sociál processes in Czech society that are related to PC introduction. The results of the field rescarch (survey, interviews) show that PCs are regarded as an important phenomenon, and that the knowledge of how to use them is becoming a universal part of the idea of the educated person, and is supposed to be acquired in the framework of school education. Almost 50% of the economically active population in the CR have access to a PC, mainly at work. Occupation, education, age, and size of locality are all differentiating eritena. In households with a PC (cca 20% of families), all members of the family are usually users and the PC is employed for routine practical tasks and word-processing by adults, and for games by chilkdren. Hithcrto none of the negative effects predicted by experts, such as damage to marital or intergeneranonal relations in the family, háve been proved. Users recognise a certain risk of pathological addiction to games, but they believe that this kind of one-sided development can be prevenied by appropriate supervision and variety in the content of free time.