As technology progresses, we often find that certain areas of an industry, or even an entire industry, become obsolete. We have seen this happen recently with the recording industry and as ebooks and self-publishing become more popular, certain jobs in book publishing are becoming harder to find. This is not a new trend, though. It has happened throughout history, as technology has moved forward. One advancement in book publishing that has had this effect was the creation of the printing technique called “stereotyping.” Nicole Howard notes that this technique was disliked by compositors, whose jobs became obsolete as a result of the advancement. Compositors were once held in high regard for their knowledge of grammar, as they often corrected the grammar, spelling, and punctuation of the texts they edited, including Milton and Shakespeare. Whether this positive or negative is not important; what is important is that, after stereotyping, compositors ceased to be involved in the process at all.
With the speed at which technology is advancing today, I wonder what other jobs will soon become obsolete.
Although technology allows us to be more dependent, I think the intermediary function will still persist. I believe it was Professor Phillips who mentioned that in order to get published in a scholarly circle, you will need an agent. A person like this offers invaluable networking services which could never be replaced by technology.
Technology has already changed certain work fields. It has made travel agents and movie rental stores almost obsolete. I think that in the future more people will be computer literate i.e. know how to code ect.
I would have to disagree with your stance on computer literacy. As more people will have access to computers, the percentage of computer literate (those able to code) will become smaller and smaller. This trend can be seen in the release of Windows 8, which is basically a simplified and dumbed down windows 7, with large buttons displays this new windows is made so that even the least technologically savvy person can operate it.
I think that a lot of jobs today involve actually creating the machines that are used to perform what were once solely human tasks. For example, blockbuster-type stores are now virtually non-existant, and have been replaced by redboxes all over the country. Although this takes jobs away from those who previously worked at blockbuster-type stores, it creates jobs for those who work in designing and creating Redboxes. Technology therefore seems to effect job opportunities in that it takes away lower tier jobs and creates more high tier jobs, which is one possible explanation for the large increase in college-graduates over the past several decades.