Contemporary computing can be seen as an assemblage

Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Main body:.......................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Introduction:
The Actor Network theory could be defined as a disparate family consisting of material semiotic
tools along with sensibilities and various methods of analysis, which treats everything in the
natural worlds and social as a constant generating effects of webs of relations within which they
are associated. According to Actor Network theory, it states that nothing in the reality or outside
the world has their enactment in those relations. It has the capacity to explore the characteristics
of the web along with the practices that are carried with them (Bartholo et al. 2009). However,
along with various actor network approach it could be described as the discursively
heterogeneous and enactment of materially relations that reshuffle and produce different kinds of
factors such as geographical arrangements, sizes, scales, inequalities, organisations, ideas, nature,
animals, machines, human beings, and subjects. The actor network theory is not a theory as
theory generally tries to explain some facts but actor network theory is rather descriptive in
nature than foundational explanatory terms (Davvaz, 2007). However, it is a disappointment for
those who are seeking for strong accounts. On the contrary it states who relations in assembling
happens. However, material semiotics is one of its kinds and it could be better understood as
toolkit for narrating interesting stories and further interfering in those stories. More precisely, it
is a sensible practice of materiality and relationally of the world (Gilbert et al. 2011).
In the following stories the Actor Network theory is going to be applied and its factors are going
to be evaluated. In order to conduct this assignment, two stories had been considered; the first
story is about when the giant Amazon company business went furious after crashing of a piece of
software that was used by retailers and hence, as a result hundreds of items had to be sold for 1p
(Sky News, 2015). Another story in this assignment is about the Americas Securities and
Exchange Commission and its Commodity Futures Trading Commission; the commission issued
a report on the flash crash that took place on 6 th May (The Economist, 2010). In the afternoon of
6th May, the future indces and American shares had gone through seemingly inexplicable tailspin
as it fall at the rate of about 10% in a fraction of second. As a result of this flash crash, some blue
chip shares were traded at a penny in order to recover most of the lost amount at the end of the
day. This situation raised a question with regard to the trading rules in the market that is might

have failed to maintain the proceeding in the market, which is now handling millions of business
deals in milliseconds (The Economist, 2010).

Main body:
This assignment is intended to evaluate the negative impact of computing and this would be done
by evaluating two stories mentioned in the assignment. In order to evaluate the two stories, the
Actor Network theory would be used to relate the relationship between living and computing
devices. The Actor Network theory is not a theory but is a descriptive in nature and its does not
explains any facts (Meinrath et al. 2011). The assignment is intended to provide the negative
impacts of computers in the workplace and how does it impacts on the daily proceeding of
human beings. It is clear that computer have transformed the workplace environment to a large
extent as well as the society as a whole. Every organization is dependent on computer in order to
connect with customers, vendors, co workers along with accessing information (Metzger et al.
2013). The computers are no doubt useful to track schedules, provide needed data along with
achieving streamline data. Although computer have provided various useful information in
conducting business activities along with various operational functions and made transfer of data
easier to abroad or nearby locations, there are also various negative impacts of computers. The
negative impacts of computers include cyber crimes as well as dreaded system failures (Russell
et al. 2011).
Communication has been easier with the help of computer and this factor is essentially utilised in
the workplace. The electronic mail has been commonly used in the place of professional
communication. However, this matter had become a plethora for the miscommunication issues.
Many working employees do not have the effective communication skill for writing messages
and hence, they could not use the communicating messages effectively (Bartholo et al. 2009).
Even a skilful writer in could have problem in delivering messages via electronic mail.
Therefore, it could be said that without the use of proper body language and inflection in the
messages, the messages could sound complimentary or even neutral or further it could be
interpreted as critical or rude (Davvaz, 2007). Another impact of excessive use of computer is
that many employees have used the facility of electronic mail so intensely that they have not
developed the skill of communicating face to face or via telephone calls. However, there are

other risks of computing such as the risk of cloud as there is a flip side of data accessibility. The
main disadvantages of this factor are that no one could access data if the internet goes out. There
are also risk factors of sharing data with others no matter is the owner of the data might want it
or not. An important document could accidently be shared. As all versions could be seen in the
computer, there is a risk factor of something by mistake gets paste to somewhere else. The
company that operates the server can even access the private data (Gilbert et al. 2011).
Therefore, the above factors clearly goes with the topic of the assignment along with the stories
mentioned in the introduction section. The first story narrates that the American Securities and
Exchange Commission and its Commodity Futures Trading Commission stated a report about the
flash crash that occurred on the 6th of May. The report provided a full proof data of what went
wrong on that day from the exchanges and the trading firms (The Economist, 2010). Before the
unwanted situation occurd there was unsual volatility and thin liquidity that were somewhat
managed with the help of economic news and unsettling political views. The report stated that
there was an order of a huge deal in e mini futures in the S & P 500 index by a group probably
called Waddell and Reed. However, due to the automated algorithmic trade programme, to
account trading volume apart from considering time or price, and finally it was executed within
20 minutes rather than taking several hours that should have been taken for such a huge order
(The Economist, 2010).
In another case study of Amazon which went through furious business activities after the failure
of piece of software which were used by retailers and as a result hundreds of items had to sold at
the price of 1p. As per the reports, various companies stated that they were suffering from the
risk of bankruptcy as the problem has resulted to them to lose huge amount of money. The main
problem was with the software provided by the Repricer Express and the companies using its
software were suffering from the threat of bankruptcy (Sky News, 2015). However, the software
was designed to make the business competitive by automatically updating the prices of the items
so that the company gets competitive advantage in the market by lowering their prices than its
competitors in the digital market. However, there was a problem in the software of the company
and as a result hundreds of items were sold at minimal problems. Hence, from the above two
stories, it is clear that the mishap came due to the problem in the computer software or the

mishandling of the computer system. Therefore, due to this computing problem there had been
huge business losses (Sky News, 2015).

Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it is evident that there had been various facilities provided by
computer along with various kinds of negative impact. Though the computer is providing help in
various ways to the employees in the work place in order to gather data and receive information,
there has been various stress factors involved in it. In the above two stories it was seen that the
mishap went due to the problem in the computer software and due to which huge business losses
had taken place (Sky News, 2015). As per the report of the American Securities and Exchange
Commission and its Commodity Futures Trading Commission, it is evident that the there was a
problem in the computer while conducting a business trade that must have taken hours to compel
but however, it was conducted within 20 minutes. Therefore, it created a sudden problem in the
market. In the second story, the problem was related with the software of the company as it failed
to update the prices of the product. Hence, the problem in the software resulted in the mishap and
the huge amount of products were sold at the minimal prices. Therefore, the above two stories
critically evaluates the negative impact of computing (The Economist, 2010).

References
Bartholo, R., Cosenza, C., Doria, F. and de Lessa, C. (2009). Can economic systems be seen as
computing devices?. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 70(1-2), pp.72-80.
Davvaz, B. (2007). Approximations in n-ary algebraic systems. Soft Comput, 12(4), pp.409-418.
Gilbert, R., Murphy, N. and Clementina valos, M. (2011). Realism, idealization, and potential
negative impact of 3D virtual relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(5), pp.20392046.
Meinrath, S., Losey, J. and Lennett, B. (2011). A Growing Digital Divide: Internet Freedom and
the Negative Impact of Command-and-Control Networking. IEEE Internet Computing, 15(4),
pp.75-79.
Metzger, C., Thiesse, F., Gershwin, S. and Fleisch, E. (2013). The impact of false-negative reads
on the performance of RFID-based shelf inventory control policies. Computers & Operations
Research, 40(7), pp.1864-1873.
Russell, B., Pusey, A. and Chatterton, P. (2011). What can an assemblage do?. City, 15(5),
pp.577-583.
Sky News, (2015). Glitch Causes Items To Be Sold On Amazon For 1p. [online] Available at:
http://news.sky.com/story/1391548/glitch-causes-items-to-be-sold-on-amazon-for-1p [Accessed
29 Jul. 2015].
The

Economist,

(2010).

One

big,

bad

trade.

[online]

Available

at:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/10/what_caused_flash_crash [Accessed 29 Jul.

2015].