Information Society: Idea - A, Realization - F, Total - D

There are terms and entities behind them that were once conceived as something exceptionally cool and helpful but ended up slipping into theory, bureaucracy, or oblivion. Of course, starting and winning in this lineup is “digital transformation”, which magically makes any report nauseating, any article boring, and any discussion bland. But today, I decided to brush the cobwebs (what a pun!) off the notion of information society and, simultaneously, to figure out whether we are living in it, what its failings and bonuses are, where it is now, and what's next.

Is our society an information society? What is each of us' role in it? Are metaverses an information society, its new stage, or something completely different? This is only a small part of the questions the modern IT-sphere asks regarding information society. And as always, these questions are skewed towards the virtual world and new behavioral models.

Meanwhile:

• We still have not overcome the gap in technical skills in the world
• We have not taught artificial intelligence to fight unhappy and painful old age (we have not taught it much at all)
• We have not been able to harmoniously and timely use technologies in all spheres of life and activity

Mankind has entered the information age, leaving the consciousness of the age of steam engines - we just haven't kept up with the wonders. Or did we?

What Is the Information Society?

May 17 is the World Telecommunication & Information Society Day. It is really interesting to talk about information society. Especially on HackerNoon. Especially in the current space-political-economic-time continuum.

So, why did the UN come up with such a day? Why is it so important that regardless of the historical background, every May 17, the world's largest newspapers occasionally raise the issue for discussion?

Here's what the official information on the UN website says about the day:

Innovative tech can help tackle the world’s most pressing challenges, from fighting climate change to eliminating hunger and poverty. In fact, digital technologies can help achieve 70% of targets under the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Yet glaring digital gaps hinder innovation in many parts of the world. The lack of policies, investment, and digital skills leaves many countries struggling to keep up in the fast-changing digital landscape.

May 17 marks the anniversary of signing the first International Telegraph Convention and establishing the International Telecommunication Union. World Telecommunication Day has been celebrated annually since 1969, and since 2005, it has been supplemented by “...and the Information Society.” In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society called the UN General Assembly to declare May 17 as World Telecommunication & Information Society Day to emphasize the importance of ICTs and focus on a wide range of issues related to the information society.

Every year, the most relevant and serious topic related to the functioning of ICTs worldwide is chosen for this day. It is a key topic discussed in the media and special events.

Let's define the concepts. The definition given by the IBM Community Development Foundation was most to my liking and mind:

Information society is characterized by a high level of informatization of the daily lives of most citizens, organizations, and workplaces; through the use of common or interoperable technologies for a wide range of personal, social, educational, and business tasks; and through the ability to rapidly transmit, receive, and exchange digital data between locations regardless of distance.

It's a bit tedious, so let's extract the main thing from the definition: information society = a lot of informatization + use of technologies for specific tasks + standard quality and speed of data transmission. And if we and the world as a whole have relatively nothing with the first and the last (again, excluding the digital divide and extremes), we are in trouble with the solution of specific tasks.

Mankind has not yet learned to use technologies for precisely applied purposes, to solve issues in an extremely rational way, and to build not only the IT infrastructure of companies but also the IT infrastructure of the whole society.

In other words, the aggregate part of society with smartphones and laptops with Internet access is far from being an information society, although, paradoxically, it is an important part of its core.

Our society is more of an information-conscious society:

• We understand the importance of information technology
• User gadgets of any level and for any need have been developed
• There is a whole layer of IT professionals
• The older generation no longer lives outside the information sphere

Nevertheless, this society cannot be called information literate. And here, I am not talking about students who in 2020 asked how to create an email box, not about the elderly who find it difficult to set up a modern smartphone, not about those forced to grow up without a single gadget. It's about people who cannot use information technology tools to solve problems. There are several reasons for this:

• Complex, confusing user interface (UI) of applications, entailing a bad user experience (UX). Many government and authority websites suffer from this: it's still easier to reach an institution than to cope with filling out all the forms and getting all the data reset at the end. Fortunately, the situation is starting to improve. And yes, this does not only apply to sites. It happens in almost any public sector.

• The service remains a service, not a partnership. The client (user, subscriber) receives a service but does not learn or gain new experience. Thus, they remain only a user of the service, a customer, and yet cannot handle little to no change.

• Difficult transition from the standards of the recent past to new technologies. This is exactly characteristic of European countries. There are still frequent problems with the transition to paperless document management, with mastering corporate software and even private applications (installed and unused).

• Distrust of technology and computers. Purely mentally, it is difficult for a person to trust technology, especially if it is impossible to check the result (hello to websites without confirmation of actions). In this respect, messengers win, which have an unambiguous indication: delivered, received, read.

• Habit, the user's attachment to a separate ecosystem, significantly worsens interaction with programs and interfaces outside the familiar environment. Pay attention to your parents or grandmothers: they often believe that Facebook, YouTube, or WhatsApp is the entire Internet, hence the special usage patterns. In the same way, even advanced guys have a hard time “crawling” from one social network to another or even from one working environment to another - for example, from Monday to Salesforce). And in the case of a non-advanced user using one single platform, the digital divide is only exacerbated.

So, what about problems in the information society?

Meanwhile, the Challenges Are Many

Let’s discuss them.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is the main problem of the information society and any system related to information technologies in general. It is faced by private users, businesses, large corporations, governments, NGOs, and everything at once. In today's world, one cannot be calm neither for the integrity of information systems, nor for data, nor for sensitive information - information security has become a major component of personal, corporate, and national security.

The information society is a society of risks and crises of trust. We are afraid to hand over information to data operators. Commercial companies and platforms are looking for ways to get data on users' actions, and numerous hackers, fraudsters, and malicious actors are honing their skills in phishing, hacking, and social engineering methods to gain profit or steal data and money.

It seems that the state of information security in society can be rated D. Some people overreact and are cautious to the point of paranoia. In contrast, others are not shy about loudly dictating the CVV code of the card number. Overall, this imbalance undermines confidence in the fundamentals of the information society.

Digital Divide

The digital divide is the second most important problem. Users have very different levels of gadget ownership, different speeds of internet access, and different accessibility of gadgets, content, and online communications. An over-information society is not just opposed; it is sometimes adjacent to a society without automation and information technology (e.g., it could be orthodox-religious people, patriarchal-type families, non-wealthy and/or frugal people, etc.).

Achieving digital equality is the most important social challenge, which, among other things, should be addressed by state institutions. There are some advances in this: for example, they include allocating a pool of sites with free access, the so-called socially important Internet resources. Unfortunately, society itself is unable to overcome the digital divide, although each of us can do something in this direction:

• Donate an old laptop or smartphone to a family in need
• Teach elderly relatives and neighbors how to use basic services
• Create a cool and convenient application

I can give humanity a D and even a C for bridging the digital divide, if only for realizing and striving to solve the problem.

Growing Flow of Information

Lots of information is very cool; humanity has never had so much diverse content and so many channels of communication and socialization. The continuous increase in information flow is a huge pressure on the psyche and thinking of modern humans. It is difficult to navigate the incoming information; the criticality of perception is lost, and the brain stops resting and then “gets tired” and stops perceiving and memorizing complex blocks of external information.

In modern conditions, even digital hygiene does not work: disturbing news, advertisements, news from friends, social network feeds, etc., literally climb on our screens of all resolutions.

I give society an A for the amount and willingness to share information but a D for the ability to filter, process, interpret, and, most importantly, take responsibility for the content.

Digital Legacy

Neglect of information is another troubling symptom. We receive important data, knowledge, and useful content and simply consume them without even trying to transform, preserve, and pass them on not only to new generations but even to our contemporaries.

Let me say more: we create valuable information and leave it in the conscience of the virtual world. Imagine how much value there is in Wikipedia, Hackernoon, and Medium in standardized blogs of talented people and professionals. How many poems and music are created only in electronic form? And what part of this information will be available not in a hundred but literally in 20-30 years? Until ultra-reliable and capacious media are created, petabytes of truly talented human labor are at risk.

We still haven't found an effective form of digital legacy, and we take great fun in what the human mind creates. A society without heritage is dead - just like a society without history. Here, I rate society an F and give great hope to engineers and scientists who will solve the problem of not only storing and transmitting but also the subsequent long-term reproduction of digital information.

Unplugging

It is as incredibly easy to disconnect a person as it is to pull them into the world of information technology, and the decision can be made by governments, corporations, and just about anyone else. This is probably the most acute problem of the information society, and it is bad that it is solved either in a fragmented or strange way (the Chinese model).

At the moment of possible disconnection, a person loses too much: friends, socialization, jobs and developments, connections, and hobbies. This is so dangerous that it can lead to the most unexpected social consequences.

But this is not the worst of it. Our entire information society depends on electric networks, which means, among other things, on natural disasters and cataclysms, solar activity, and the state of the cosmos. And we still haven't found really reliable and effective mechanisms for dealing with the elements and their harmful consequences. Now, it sounds a bit far-fetched and fantastic, but climate change can play a cruel joke on ultra-technological humanity. Here, I rate D.

So, A Society in Transition or a Failed Experiment?

So, are we truly living in an "information society," or have we merely dressed up an old framework with new tools? The evidence suggests that while we have embraced digital technology on the surface, we have failed to integrate it meaningfully into the societal fabric. We have not built an information society; we have built a society with information—often disjointed, inaccessible, and insecure.

Ultimately, if we continue to see technology as an end rather than a means, we risk remaining in this state of perpetual transition—a limbo where the promise of an information society never fully materializes. To move forward, we must critically assess where we are failing and why and then rebuild with a focus on genuine human-centric progress, equality, and long-term sustainability.

The true measure of success for an information society will not be in how much data we can produce or how many devices we can connect. It will be in how effectively we use technology to create a just, inclusive, and resilient world.

What Do I Think About DAOs?

DAOs represent the logical evolution towards inclusivity and participatory governance driven by the information society. Unlike any traditional corporation or organization that would depend on a single central authority or board of directors, DAOs operate under the power of smart contracts and collective will from their members. Every participant can vote on decisions, make propositions for changes, and directly influence the course taken by the organization.

In contrast, this model democratizes decision-making and affords structures that are fluid and dynamic. Agility and responsiveness are key in an information society, and DAOs are thus nothing short of a powerful tool for collective action and community-driven initiatives. Imagine a world where the local community self-governs, social networks are owned by their users, and public goods are funded and transparently managed through DAOs. This is not utopian; this is a growing reality.

Conclusion

Of course, we have been living in an information society for a long time, and information has become labor, capital, and a means of production. However, we have forgotten that society - any society! - should be built on the principles of interest to humans, anthropocentricity, humanity, aspiration for universal well-being, and normal existence.

The information society of the XXI century inherited the features of the industrial society and did not rise above it. It seems that we are still at the stage of formation, so mistakes are forgivable. But what will happen next depends primarily on us, IT specialists. Except that we almost never think about it.