Yes, obviously crime existed before computers were around. But, with the existence of computers came MORE forms of crimes, such as spam, fraud, financial and identity theft, cyberstalking, phishing scams, malware, viruses, etc.

You stated that "Computers just gave us an alternative distraction, nothing more". A survey conducted in July 2007, by Houghton Mifflin, stated that 44% of responding college students said that the computer was their distraction of choice.

With new social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc, students EASILY get distracted. What more with the fast internet connectivity, it's all just one web address away. Computers IS an alternative distraction, but it is a MORE effective distraction to students. Children/Teenagers these days are more inclined on the Internet, and im positive that it is a bigger distraction than something like sports/partying.

Hmmm. Would you mind giving the evidence for these points?

Yes, they have made many things possible, but it also opens the gateway to hacking and similar stuff like online theft. It brings us away from our studies.

LIKE YOU SAID,

we can get the information in just seconds. This causes us to be very lazy and the younger generation of people does not have the skills to refer to reference books/encyclopedias.

"Children's problem solving abilities are being considerably impaired by modern technology. Computers are the greatest inventions of the modern world and a wonderful resource for our children, but we must begin to repair the damage caused by our kids' over dependence on such facilities, before it is too late." - Jan Gamm.

Yes, we, as humans, are becoming overwhelmingly dependent on computers. This is definitely a bad thing, especially for the younger generations. They rely on computers for research, answers and information on the web, for online shopping, or perhaps just for chat. But have we considered what it would be like for the people of the younger generation to react if the computer broke down, or if there was no internet connection? What would they rely on? They would most probably abandon their research without referring to a book for the information.

Homeworks and assignments are often typed out by the students on Microsoft Word or any other document, that comes with a free spelling&grammatical;check, complete with word count, etc. This may cause laziness and illiteracy for the younger ones, relying heavily on technology to aid them in whatever problems or mistakes they might face.

Think about it - the people sitting in front of a computer all day. They lack experience in daily life, in the outside world. They become too used to online chatting, and become socially awkward outside. These are all the dangers of becoming overwhelmingly dependent on computers.