Of course, the latter type of upgrade must be forcefully advocated in order to maintain the economic base of its advocates, that is, the computer hypists. A clear emphasis in software development and advertising has been on rendering intellectual and cognitive tasks easier and easier, thus requiring less and less skill on the part of the user, apart from the ability to recognize words or numbers from their spatial characteristics. The matter is perhaps similar to the reduction of auto workers' jobs due to replacement by robots. The issue emerges as to whether the dynamics of software influence should be the occasion for renewed concern for the human factor in the workplace, and for counteracting the prospect of diminishing opportunities for children and young adults to realize their own potential, skills, and self growth. The issue thus emerges as to what corrective action might be sought in light of the computer assault having evolved in a manner inclined primarily toward male participation.
Advertising creates needs.
One is the perceived need to upgrade to new, revised, software programs. The solutions, of course, must be purchased with money. In the process, they also preserve the dependence of consumers on these products. The issue is whether this practice is much different from other similar techniques in which social and organizational psychologists have been interested, such as those used by the automobile, tobacco, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, or alcohol industries. One remaining issue therefore, derived from the above, is whether the discipline of psychology should be as concerned with the intellectual, social, and vocational costs of the computer assault as it traditionally has been with other social problems and dysfunctional forces in society.