While the economic sphere is a critical component of social inclusion, it is not the only component. What about the impact of ICT on other aspects of life? Simply put, the broad trends seen in the informational economy are reverberating in all aspects of society. It for this reason that we can talk about not just the information economy but also the information society, or as Castells puts it, the network society. Networks, based on interconnected nodes, have existed in human society since its inception, but they have taken on a new life in our time as they have become information networks powered by the Internet. Networks have great advantages over hierarchies because of their flexibility, speed, adaptability, and resilience. In the realm of biology, from the brain to the ecosystem, networks have proven their advantages over hierarchies time and again. In the realm of human activity, though, the communicative means for large-scale networking has been absent, and networks have until recently been unable to demonstrate their advantages over hierarchical forms of organization, which until now have been the only viable means for organizing activity on a large scale. This is changing with the development of computer-mediated communication and the Internet. Computer-mediated communication was initiated in science laboratories in the 1960s, promoted by the U.S. military in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and developed further in conjunction with key U.S. research universities through the efforts of a small cadre of programmers. This development took forms such as ARPANET, BITNET, and USENET in the 1970s and 1980s and exploded throughout the world via the Internet in the 1990s.
Digital World, Economic Growth and Technological Advancement
