This paper will examine the advantages and disadvantages of belonging to the ‘information society’. In order to do this, it will first define the term ‘information society’ and then will provide specific examples of advantages and disadvantages that have accrued to these societies. Finally, this essay will briefly evaluate the short-term future of the information society as it relates to libraries and information sources. Belonging to a society rich not only in information, but also (and more importantly) in the means to disseminate this information, has delivered extremely powerful benefits for the developed world in the late-20th and early-21st centuries, and holds a great deal of promise for the rest of the world as the information society goes global. For the purposes of this essay, the ‘information society’ will be taken to mean any society (or all taken in the aggregate) whose economic and cultural drivers are all information based. More specifically, these economies and cultures (for those are the relevant parts that make up a society) are dependant on the broad dissemination of knowledge: on society as a whole being well educated and thus able to consume, use and produce information; and on a ‘knowledge …show more content…
Universal education prepared all members to access education and information, with the egalitarian purpose of allowing all people equal access to information. In his book focusing on the information society (which he calls the information economy, focusing on the wealth-creation aspect of the information revolution) Stonier notes that “an educated workforce tends to exploit new technology, whereas an ignorant one tends to be victimised by it.” (Stonier, 1983,