This new servant of man is only about twenty-five years old, but it has already changed the lives of more that 200 million Americans. Wherever the citizen turns, he finds a computer working. It helps him make long-distance and local telephone calls.
Computers are also used when one reserves space on an airplane. Walk into airline office. Before selling you a ticket, the reservation clerk uses machine to record information about where you want to go and the flight number of the plane that will take you to your destination. This information is sent instantly to a central computer that may be many kilometres away from the airline office. Within seconds, the computer informs the clerk whether or not there is space for you on that plane.
Such reservation systems are now in increasing use. They are also employed by hotels, by companies that rent cars, and by offices that sell tickets to theatres and sport events. The computer not only determines what seats are available at what prices, but it also prints the tickets at the same time.
When you buy an automobile, a factory process, that is controlled by a computer, enables you to obtain a car with your own choice of colors and special features in just a few weeks' time. In medical laboratories, computers have reduced the errors in testing, and they have saved doctors countless hours of work. Before long, medical histories of all Americans will be kept in "computer banks". If a person becomes ill far from his home, local doctors will be able to get his medical record immediately. In science, the computer has performed in minutes experiments which would have required thousands of hours of work by human hands and minds.
More and more Americans use computers in their daily lives. In some American schools, for example, young children are being taught by computers for part of the school day.
The use of computers in schools has worried some Americans. There are those who fear it will remove the human element from teacher-student relationship. Some teachers fear that computers will take their jobs. On the other hand, there are educators who consider computers a valuable means of freeing teachers from the more boring and tiring tasks, enabling them to spend more time with individual students.
In education, as in business and industry, science and medicine, computers play an important part in almost every type of operation. The future will bring major advances in computer technology and applications, which will aid man in his efforts to improve his world.