The urban India is witnessing the burgeoning change because of the IT revolution. Swanky malls, posh eating joints, ritzy foreign cars, high-rise commercial complexes, villas etc., are some of the visible attributes of the IT revolution and the amount of dollars that is flowing through the IT corridors. Securing an IT job today is a sure shot way to the riches.

But on the flip side, IT revolution has divided our society. It revolution has created a social imbalance that has already created a deeper impact on our social structure.

In a way, IT revolution is creating a social imbalance now. The big bucks, foreign trips and the western ways of living are actually dividing the society. On one side, we have those who are able to make it to the software parks. The money they are getting gives them an "intelligent-smart-successful" clout. While the less fortunate others, who couldn't make it to the IT jobs are living in abject self-pity and with low self esteem. Even those who are intelligent and self motivated are either frustrated or are channelizing their energy and time to find the bee-route to software parks.

Today, if someone aspires to be an artist, or a musician, or a teacher, he or she has to overcome phenomenal parental, peer and social pressure to pursue their career of interest. Because of the big money, IT career has become as much an aspiration of the society. IT does a pied-piper taking away the best talent available for other industries.


Student community and the fresh graduates today are obsessed with IT jobs, particularly the engineering students. Irrespective of their streams, every engineering student wants to land in a IT job. The big salary is the pull-factor. But this big starting salary is playing havoc on other manufacturing, engineering industries. Engineering students who join non-IT industries make an "unequal" comparison with their "smart" peers and thus they are either frustrated in their present salary or are breaking their heads at software training centers to find their bee-route to software parks.

Other industries are not getting the best talent. They either have to settle scores with the available talent or pay through their nose to get the best talent, which only few companies can afford to. Every industry is unique and has its own paying capacity. Because of the IT all other industries are suffering and finding it difficult to attract and retain the best talent.

The impact is more evident in small companies or start-ups, where they don’t find quality people visiting their premises. A fresher with average talents is not interested to join a start up and work his/her way up. When his peer can boast of the big names like Wipro, Infosys, TCS... how one can expect a graduate to utter an unfamiliar name as his employer. Graduates today shamelessly wait for more than one year... few even two years to get their so called "Big Break".

The big starting salaries offered at IT companies are so attractive that they find the small pay cheque bitter. Small companies couldn’t afford to pay as much as IT companies pays to a fresher. It is a very sorry state. Companies need the best talent only during the formative years. But youth of today are obsessed with the quick bucks and luxurious life.

Selling is such a wonderful profession. But today it is the neglected or least preferred profession among the fresh graduates. Youth of today think it is below their dignity to take up sales jobs. But in reality, sales jobs demand as much professional acumen as IT jobs does.

Arts graduates with good communication skills are drawn towards call centers or BPO. They are reluctant to take up the sales jobs. Only those who are desperate for a job or those who are clueless about making a career decision take up sales jobs.

On the personal front level, as much I know, IT revolution has certainly killed the reading habit among the youth of today. Libraries wear a deserted look nowadays. Reading books doesn't seem to interest the young IT crowd today. Students today don't want to experience the pleasures of reading. The pressure to perform and to get the desired IT job has created a panic among the graduate students that they hardly turn their attention towards reading for pleasure. Reading is such a stress busting activity. The vanishing reading habits could contribute to the increasing stress related problems among the students and working adults.

Communication experts, University Chancellors, Professors, HR managers voice their concern every now and then over the declining standards in communication among the youth. Communication skill, particularly the ability to write flawlessly is an essential skill to excel in any profession. Even in our curriculum, due importance is not given to language proficiency. As it is not an essential criterion for engineering admission and even for IT jobs, language proficiency takes the back seat. Students don't want to waste their energy in learning something that is not going to give them immediate returns. IT may not be blamed here directly, but it certainly has its own share. Students and fresh graduates are desperate to equip themselves for high paying IT jobs that they shifted their focus from mastering the art of communication. Even most of the IT employees are not the best of communicators. They may be thinking that it is not their domain.

The dollars that is coming through the IT corridors also brought along the western cultures into our society. Drinking, dancing and socializing are the way to stay among the IT crowd. Unusually (at least for Chennai) Discotheque halls, bars and posh restaurants are crowded during the weekends, the surplus money that the young hands carry are what draws them there. By and large, the IT revolution has certainly broken the threads of the cultural aspects of our society and created an illusion that it is not wrong to lead a western lifestyle in India.

Sky rocketing real estate prices are an indicator of the spill over effect of the over-paid software professionals. With no development in road or sanitary conditions, the rates of lands in several areas have nearly tripled in less than two years time. With so much of money given at a very young early age, they don’t understand the value of real hard earned money. Long-time savers and those who plan to buy land/house with the post-retirement money are the worst affected. The condition is such that real estate is not affordable to the middle income group. When the country witnessed IT Boom simultaneously there was a real estate boom, a clear indicator of IT revolution and the impacts of big salaries.

Ask any parent with a son or daughter in the marriageable age to know the social impact of IT revolution, particularly when it comes to arranged marriages. Social expectations of an average bridegroom are phenomenal today. Most of the middle class and upper middle class families are reluctant to give their daughter to an average Non-IT earner. Non-IT bridegrooms are treated with disrespect and considered not-so-smart. Parents today think it is below their dignity to have a marital relationship with someone who can’t take their daughter to foreign countries or get her a plush apartment etc. Considerations such as qualities, habits, lifestyle, and family background are pushed aside. In majority of the cases, salary becomes the single most deciding factor. Bigger the salary: Better the chances. They are in a fix. It affects both ways. Even girls find it fashionable to say that she is married to an IT groom. Eligible good bridegrooms don’t find suitable brides and vice versa. There is sufficient amount of suffocation and frustration building among the eligible brides and grooms in a section of the society that the average marriage age is in the rise. IT revolution is certainly shaken up the fine thread of marriage.

IT is as much a mis-conception. The core social needs remain the same, irrespective of the changing times. Society needs, lawyers, tailors, engineers, doctors, salesmen, cobblers, key makers, masons, carpenters, draftsmen, cook, electrician, mechanic, machine operators, binders, artists, police, translators..etc as much as software engineers and call centre executives. Actually there is no need to panic about, for not choosing software or call centre career. Every career has its own importance and requires few years of learning and exposure to gain expertise. One can earn in every other field as much as in software, only that few requires some consistent focus, learning and application.

But who is going to change? What is going to stop? Only the time can change a social aspiration as strong as this high paying IT jobs.