The context

View the most recent version.

Life in our time is influenced by information and communications technologies (ICTs) everywhere. Over the last two decades, or so, whether at work or in our social lives, computers, cell phones and the Internet have changed daily routines and altered behaviour. The early focus of policy on ICT access gave way to issues of use, which are more closely linked to benefits. However, the ultimate interest has been to assess the outcomes and comprehend the longer term impacts associated with ICTs.

About twenty-five years ago, the telephone was the most visible communications technology. Its usage involved, exclusively, simple two-way voice communication, which was not much different from its beginnings a century earlier. Personal computers, cell phones, and the Internet did not exist in any way that would be recognized today. These days, a visitor walking in several downtown cores will notice that people on the street appear to be talking to themselves. In fact, these are not isolated occurrences of eccentric or troubled individuals; these are people talking into microphones and listening through earpieces attached to cell phones, which are tucked away somewhere. The visitor will also notice that groups of people, presumably close friends, walking together on sidewalks and maneuvering through intersections with heavy traffic, are busy talking -but not among themselves; instead, they are chatting individually with someone else, somewhere.

Examples of such behaviour precipitate easy statements of the type that we are becoming increasingly isolated, lonely and remote from our friends and families (Kraut et al. 1998). These are followed by the elaboration of theories concerning modern alienation, the breakdown of the social and community fabric, the decay in interpersonal relationships or the strangeness of our neighbours, among others (Nie and Erbring 2000). While several forces are at work in our societies that may point in such a direction, the story of ICTs is rather different in that there are many angles and nuances to consider.

Since ICTs have permeated almost every economic and social activity, the outcomes and impacts worthy of examination would make for a very long list. Efforts to understand the impacts of ICTs on the 'macro' economy are well underway (OECD 2003) and, with new datasets available, research is taking place at the level of industry and firm performance (Clayton 2005). While researching economic outcomes is well justified, there are several other outcomes of ICTs related to the social domains of people's lives (Kraut et al. 1998, Wellman et al. 2001, Nie and Erbring 2000).

In order to gain insights into the evolving economic and social outcomes of ICTs, both direct quantification and analytical inference through diverse, time-series data are needed. It is only now, when data have recorded the history of several years, that we can start making meaningful comparisons. However, just like other revolutionary technological process, including the canal, the railway, electricity, and the airplane, it may take decades - rather than years - to fully understand the outcomes and impacts of ICTs. Although the transformation brought about by ICTs may well continue to evolve over time, this analysis takes a shorter-term view and uses a variety of data sources to arrive at reasonable inferences on selected ICT-induced behavioural changes. In particular, this paper begins to address selective issues and uses statistical information to draw some early inferences to improve understanding of ICT outcomes and impacts. Some of the anticipated or expected outcomes associated with ICT are presented, while factual evidence is used to demonstrate that these outcomes have - so far - not materialized. The paper further demonstrates that some of the key outcomes of ICTs are manifested in changing behavioural patterns, including communication and spending patterns.