Technology Must Master Today to Take Tomorrow

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The vision of a digital information superhighway, highlighted by BT's declaration last week that it was ready to invest up to |pounds~10bn on a fibre optic network connecting homes, schools and offices, is starting to provoke predictable forecasts about the social impacts of technological change. Larry Ellison, the president of software company Oracle, recently declared that "the impact of this revolution will rival that of the electric light or the telephone or, perhaps, printing itself."

This viewpoint assumes that technology transforms the way people think, interact and consume. Yet by itself technology changes nothing, instead it is the interaction of technology with social, …