In a way, IT revolution is creating a social imbalance now. The big bucks, foreign trips and the western ways of living have actually divided our 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 his less fortunate peers, 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 channelising 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 an IT job. The big salary is the pull-factor. But this big starting salary is playing havoc on other manufacturing, engineering, service, hospitality industries.

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 are 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 or her way up. When his peer can boast of the big names like Wipro, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)... how one can expect a graduate to utter an unfamiliar name as his employer?

Small companies cannot 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.

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. 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 centres to find their bee-route to software parks.

On the personal front, 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. 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.

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 shift 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 bring along the western cultures into our society. Drinking, dancing and socialising have become unwritten norms 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 if someone is against western lifestyle, he is conservative, whereas it is a matter of choice.

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. IT revolution has certainly killed the middle class aspirations of buying a property of their own. With so much money given at a very young early age, IT employees can hardly understand the value of real hard earned money. Long-time savers and those who plan to buy land or house with the post-retirement money are the worst affected. The condition is such that real estate is not affordable to the middle income groups. 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 disrespected and are considered not-so-smart.

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. 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 on the rise. IT revolution has certainly shaken up the fine thread of marriage.

The core social needs remain the same, irrespective of the changing times. Our society still 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 that? When is it going to stop? Only time can change a social aspiration as strong as these high paying IT jobs.