ABSTRACT
The computer, during the last three decades, has become a symbol of technological innovation and the source of complex social changes in work and leisure. Information technology has taken a prominent place in industry and in varied sectors of the economy by influencing development and growth, and it has changed dramatically the ways of working and communicating in areas such as research, development, management and financial services, media, communications and publishing. As a result, it has been rightly claimed that the computer's entry into our lives has constituted a ‘second industrial revolution’ and a basis for the emergence of a ‘post-industrial’ or ‘information’ society (Bell, 1980 cited in Ruthven, 1993, p. 187).
