Sociological tidbit about computers

Canadian children and computers

Ever since the introduction of computers into homes and schools, the lives of Canadian children have changed immensely since the childhood days of their parents and grandparents. Is this a good thing? As the old adage has it, you can’t stop progress. Yet the progress in the world of computer technology is moving so fast that the average person can’t keep up with it. What the long-term consequences of a computerized world are remains to be seen.

Here is a sociological tidbit from the CBC Digital Archives: 
. Canada ranks highly among nations for children's access to computers at home and school. In 2000, close to 90 per cent of 15-year-old children had access to computers. This was above the rate in the United States and just below the rate in countries such as Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden.
. Also in 2000, Statistics Canada reported that Canadian children had use of a computer every day or at least a few times a week.

. Children in Spain, Greece and Germany had to share one computer among 20 students in 2000.
. The first advertised personal computer called Scelbi (scientific, electronic and biological) was created in Milford, Conn., in 1974, and contained one kilobyte of memory.
. In 2003, a powerful home PC had one gigabyte (1 million kilobytes) of RAM (random access memory).