Task 2. My computer makes me sick.
There's no doubt that the computer has enlarged man's working capacity as well as his intellectual capacity enormously.
Er, but it brings with it dangers to match the benefits.
Now by this, I mean danger to physical and mental well-being of the people who work at computer terminals, not the dangers to personal privacy or national or industrial security.
There's one very alarming set of statistics which come from a survey done in the UK on 800 pregnant women, who happened to use computer terminals for a major parts of their working day.
In no less then 36% of the subjects, there was some severe abnormality during the pregnancy, enough to make a termination necessary.
Now these figures compare significantly with a control group of pregnant women of the same age, but who did not work with computer terminals.
The incidence of severe abnormalities in their case was only 16%.
This survey confirms similar investigations carried out in Denmark, Canada, Australia and the USA.
Now, no one yet has a clear idea about the exact connection between working with computer terminals and the problems with pregnancy, but the figures at least suggest that there's, well, a cause for alarm.
In more general terms, increased stress and disturbances to vision have been noted in workers exposed for long periods to the video screen, and in many countries, trade unions of workers involved with computers have laid down their own guidelines to protect members' health.
Erm, for instance, rest periods or a change of activity from time to time are recommended, and the terminal should be placed so that there's a source of natural light, and something else to look at, emm, no blank walls behind the terminal, in other words, so that the operator has a chance to rest his eyes from time to time.