Burglar deterrent

Press, 6 January 1987, Page 11

Burglar deterrent

One thing most people are keen to monitor is the movement of uninvited guests around the home, and you can use your computer to switch lights on and off at intervals while you’re out. With ingenuity and a cooperative dog, you can link it up to a recording of doggy growls and barks, and this should provide a deterrent for the unsuspecting burglar. But again, you don’t actually need a computer to do this. So how are all these home micros earning their keep? Brian J. Ford, scientist, broadcaster and author of a new, “completely userfriendly” book, “Compute!” believes they’re being used for what they’re best at — playing games. He doesn’t deny that the computer is an “astonishingly compact and effective device,” that for some people — housebound, the chronically sick and disabled — it can be “an utter godsend,” but he does believe that the vogue for home computers is a con. The con, says Ford, lies both in the way computers are marketed as "easy-to-use necessities” and the way in which we’ve been led to believe a knowledge of computer programming is essential if we don’t want to find ourselves left behind in the workplace. This last, Ford believes, is particularly untrue and damaging — rather than alleviating some of the stresses of working life, “computer anxiety” has actually added to them. He begins his book with the firm statement that the micro is a craze which, like many others before it,, will pretty soon finish up in the nation’s attics gathering cobwebs, and ends by saying that there is a need for us to be “computer aware” — to the extent of not being intimidated by the confounded machines.. This desirable knowledge was one of the main criteria behind the Government’s £l5 million scheme to have a micro in every school. Children are now more “computer aware” than many parents, with applications for just about every subject on the curriculum, and inevitably much of this interest has filtered back home. For the older child faced with hours of 0 level revision, there are obvious advantages in having a computer at home. But when it comes to younger children,

the repercussions could be far more insidious. Lyn, a Gloucestershire primary school teacher, is particularly concerned about the unhealthy competitive spirit it brings out — strangely enough, in parents. “Parents buy computers because they’re afraid of being left out. Mothers are a prime example. They think if they buy a computer it will give their children a plus, an advantage over their peers.” There’s no doubt that it can — Brian Ford believes computers to be a particularly useful aid to language teaching — but at what cost? Although some scientists, like Ford, do not see the home computer ever replacing schools, if 10-year-old Ruth Lawrence can reach Oxford standard after home education with a computer tutor, then why not the rest of us? What point the education system? More worrying: what

might computers do to the minds and social skills of young children? How will they learn about people and play? Will future generations know anything of marbles, Wendy houses and hopscotch, will they ever learn the value of all the simple pleasures in life? Lyn is also a mother and housewife, and aside fromthe educational issue, she, too, fears the home computer is a con trick. “The world is full of people making a fast buck; someone somewhere is making a lot of money out of this. They’re trying to make us believe that if we don’t own a computer or don’t know how to use one, we’re deprived. I would challenge them to sell me- something which would save me time, money or trouble.” Where computers undoubtedly can save time and money is in the office, as many businesswomen have already discovered.