Why Do Standards Exist in Our Society?
by Standards are everywhere. In the computer and internet technology you know the AES encryption standard, in music you know the AAC standard and you also know the most well known ISO stamdard for anything such related to files. There are also standards for houses, cars, education and the list goes on.
Standards are a way to improve the efficiency of a society. Imagine you wanted to buy a door for your house. If there was more than one size allowed the door would be much more expensive because all factories would have to buy machines to produce more than just one model. If there was no standard for information technologies computers would not be possible because each one would be talking his own computer language. In verbal and written communications this is even more important. If everyone could invent new words and use the in legal documents no one would know what that man was talking about in the document.
In short standards exist to make communications much easier.
Some organizations such as the ISO are the responsibles for making standards as efficiency as they can be. Much like the government that makes the laws for the country, the ISO sets the standards for technologies. If you want your product to be widely accepted it must pass the ISO standard. If you designed a new MP4 format and it was not ISO compliant you could add variations to it that no MP4 player even software players could play because they obey the standards set by ISO.
How are standards affecting your life right now? You can set standards for yourself. If you set the standard time to get up at 7.00 AM you might feel bad when you do not get up at that time or earlier because you got less sleep than what you should get. You see, standards are a must for any society and individual to live properly.
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