TWC - Week 5 discussion

Information Communication Technology (ICT)
There is no doubt that this acronym has made its mark in the history of mankind, along with other world-changing technologies, such as, smelting, printing and steam-powered engine.

ICT has changed the landscape of human communication. Well, one of the articles even stated that machine-to-machine interactions has surpassed that of humans.What are the impacts of all these technologies to society? What have it done to all different strata of the society?

All these questions are inter-disciplinary question and could not be addressed without looking at the big picture.

Well, let's just take the evolution of internet.
Has it improved our life?
There will be no definitive answer for this particular question. Everybody has different opinion on this one.
However, I would like to highlight the fact that the net benefit will certainly surpass that of the cost.

Benefit:
Mitigation of knowledge disparity between the educated and the non-educated, bringing about a more egalitarian society. -  How true and correct is the information on the internet? Would the poor generally use it to boost productivity or waste even more time engaging in virtual world in order to forget about the reality?
For example, Indonesia recently was touted as the No.1 in Twitter usage. While I do not think that it is a bad thing, but what is more important is how people use it. If most of the people use twitter to sate their own narcissistic selves, then it is bad for the people and economy (in lost productivity). If more are about businesses, and real content and information exchange, then there is something to be leveraged there.

Mitigation of information lag time - everybody is connected, and informed - so is it really definitely a good thing? Doesn't it cause more stress and information overload? How are we going to manage all our information? Which one is the true and dependable source of information? How do one know?

Web applications to make life easier - but is it really so? How about the lost productivity by playing games or using web applications which "waste time"?

Has it improved the economics?
Yes, certainly. The articles show that Network Readiness Index is proportionate to GDP growth.But, see some of my points above for the lost productivity part
Why and how?
By bringing about knowledge economy.
Knowledge economy - low cost to SMEs, more knowledge through internet, more network/partners, increase education technology.

Has it changed political landscape?
Obama won partly because he uses twitter. People think he is the hippest presidential candidate of all time, and hence, he won. Other than a direct usage of internet, politics need to adjust themselves as society become more informed. For example, Iran government could not repress news that is censored due to a leak in internet/SNSs.
So, has Internet become a harbinger of democracy to the whole world?

All my points underlined above are good reflection points by themselves. I will spend too much time discussing each point. I'll rate the class 9/10, partly because I am an IS student.