Digital Life: The Beauty and The Beast

8/6/2019 Digital Life: The Beauty and The Beast

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Digital LifeDigital Life

The Impact of Information Technology on Social Life

The Beauty and the Beast

Nadir BouchamaResearcher at CERIST

http://nadirbouchama.webs.com/aboutme.htm

Mail: [email protected]


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OutlineOutline of the Talkof the Talk

y Introduction

y What is ICT? What is digital life?

y

Pitfalls on Estimating the Impact of ICTon Social Life

y Is man becoming the slave of ICT?

y Trends reinforced by ICT

y Conclusion


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IntroductionIntroduction

y ICT= Information & CommunicationTechnology

y ICT covers any product that will store, retrieve,

manipulate, transmit or receive informationelectronically in a digital form (personalcomputers, digital television, email, robots)

y Digital comes from the latin word digitus (finger)

y Decades ago, digital life sounded like sciencefiction. Nowadays, it becomes a reality.


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Introduction (Introduction (contdcontd))

y Life in our time is more and more influenced

by Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT)

y In some situation, we live some strangesituations, e.g:

- A visitor walking in the street can notice that

people appear to be talking to themselves;y We are talking about digital life and digital

lifestyles


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y What is the general influence of

technology on society?

In other words:

yHow will ICT change our socialroutines?

Main questionMain question


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SomeSome PitfallsPitfalls due todue to precipitationprecipitation

y Towards the paperless office

y End of traditional mail

y End of traditional retaily End of professional travels

y Technological fix

y ICT will cause a total revolution


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Man and ICTMan and ICT

QUESTION:

y Is man becoming a slave of new technologies?

ANSWER:

The may answer range from full

Technological determinism to purevoluntarism

Technological determinismpure voluntarism


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y Society is shaped by technology in general and

techniques in particular.y A deeply pessimist portrayal of man and

society that are completely subjected tomodern technology without any potential toescape.

y We are the slaves of technology

TechnologicalTechnological determinismdeterminism

Jacques Ellul

The Technological Society1964

Langdon Winner

Autonomous Technology1977

PESSIMISTIC VIEW


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PurePure VoluntarismVoluntarism

y Society is in control of technology and men areable to make it workas they wish.

y Techniques have no fixed inherent characteristicsand technology is neither good nor bad.

y Technology most often is an instrument ofliberation and it can be used for progress in allspheres of society.

y

ICT allow freedom

OPTIMISTIC VIEW


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ButBut isis itit the reality?the reality?

y At the end, These were justutopian/dystopian speculations

y ICT has made no revolutionary changeon society !

y ICT is just a trend amplifier!


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Ten trends reinforced by ICTTen trends reinforced by ICT

y 1. Time: the acceleration of all societal processesy 2. Space: increasing mobility

y 3. Scale: globalization

y 4. Social infrastructure: network

individualizationy 5. Complexity: the rise of registration for control

y 6. Capitalism: rejuvenation and growing instability

y 7. Class: growing social inequality

y 8. Politics: civil emancipation and the rise ofpopulism

y 9. Culture: the rise of participation in the media

y 10. Daily life: increasing choice opportunities


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Time: the acceleration of all societalTime: the acceleration of all societal

processesprocesses

y Some scientists such as Castells use expressionssuch as the annihilation of time or timelesstime

y The acceleration of social life already appearsfrom the start of Western modernization in thesixteenth century. After the industrial revolutionit was set into a following gear.

y Without the intervention of ICT accelerationwould have stepped-up again in the twentiethcentury, if only by the steep rise of transportmeans.


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SpaceSpace:: increasingincreasing mobilitymobility

y Place is no longer significant withapplications of ICT. After all one is able to

get access about everywhere to the global

network.

y Initially, this was linked to the assumptionthat getting access would happen

primarily from the home.


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ScaleScale:: globalizationglobalization

y Globalization is characterized by aliberalization of the world market.

y In the cultural sphere international satellitetelevision and telephony have unified the

world before.

y The Internet, e-mail and wireless mobile

communication have added a significantfurther step for Globalization .


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Social infrastructure: networkSocial infrastructure: network

individualizationindividualization

y According to many sociologists,

individualization is the most important

trend of these societies.

y This means that increasingly the individual

is the basic unit of society instead ofgroups or collectivities.

y ICT is one of the technologies enablingthis way of living, together with transport,

energy and household technologies


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Complexity: the rise of registrationComplexity: the rise of registration

for controlfor control

y ICT offers the most important means to satisfythe growing need or drive for registration andcontrol in all parts of contemporary society

More constraintsEx: biometrical passport (e-passport)

y

The question is:What the origin of this need ?

What about privacy?


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Capitalism: rejuvenation andCapitalism: rejuvenation and

growing instabilitygrowing instabilityy In electronic commerce the traditional

preponderance of supply partly shifts to demand.Consumers become co-producers in selfservice

y The second change is the dematerialization anddivision of the value chain of production,distribution and consumption.

y The third change is a mitigation of the periodic

crises of overproduction that haunt capitalism.Electronic stock management and production ondemand can lead to more appropriate productionplanning.


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Class: Growing social inequalityClass: Growing social inequality

We are more and more talking about thedigital divide

Describes the growing gap between those

people who can access and make effectiveuse of ICT and those who cannot

Separate people into two groups

x ICT users

xNon-ICT users


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Politics: civil emancipation and thePolitics: civil emancipation and the

rise of populismrise of populism

y ICT led to citizen emancipation

y

Rise of populismy The age of Internet Politics is approaching

See Wikileaks


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Culture: the rise of participation inCulture: the rise of participation in

the mediathe mediay With the advent of the Internet the

opportunities of participation in media

are increasing

y Use of media such as weblogs, wikis,

social media (for social networking) andonline civic journalism opportunities have

again grown in the last five years.y Internet is seen as an empowering

medium for users


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Daily life: increasing choiceDaily life: increasing choice

opportunitiesopportunities

y Lot of services

y

Lot of productsy Lot of contacts

y Lot of choices


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ConclusionConclusion

y

Unlike what people were expecting, ICThas not changed radically the society (tothe better or to the worse)

y From a technical point of view ICT may

be revolutionary, but her societal impactis not of that nature.

y ICT is a trend amplifier: it reinforces

dominant trends in the society


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ForFor FurtherFurther ReadingReading

ITU Report (135 pages)

2006


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Thanks

For

Listening


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ApprenixApprenix 11

Digital Life: The Beauty and The Beast

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