ABSTRACT
The effects and advances in information technology on society have been viewed as more disruptive than any previous technological impact. Human information processing is unique in the degree to which we have consciously elaborated and transmitted our personal information interactions through sophisticated symbol systems. The evolution of the modalities of human information processing has augmented and amplified our inter-personal and interenvironmental transactions to an awesome degree. Information has far less structure than knowledge: much information in fact consists of isolated and unrelated facts. Communications technology has had, however, more than an ancillary role for some time. The electronic advances common to both developments mean that it is difficult within a discussion of this nature to refer wholly to one or the other technology in terms of socio-environmental impacts. The crucial development point in the swift growth and diffusion of extended cybernetic systems has been the convergent interaction of information and communications technologies.
