Subtopic: General

If people do gravitate to their own interests and withdraw from the broader world – if weight lifters communicate only with other weight lifters, and Latvians choose to read only Latvian newspapers – there is a risk that common experiences and values will fall away. Such xenophobia would have the effect of fragmenting societies. I doubt this will happen, because I think people want a sense of belonging to many communities, including a world community.

American popular culture is so potent that outside the United States some countries now attempt to ration it. They hope to guarantee the viability of domestic-content producers by permitting only a certain number of hours of foreign television to be aired each week … The information highway is going to break down boundaries and may promote a world culture, or at least a sharing of cultural activities and values. The highway will also make it easy for patriots, even expatriates, deeply involved in their own ethic communities to reach out to others with similar interests no matter where they are located. This may strengthen cultural diversity and counter the tendency toward a single world culture.

This new access to information can draw people together by increasing their understanding of other cultures. Some believe it will cause discontent and worse, a “Revolution of Expectations,” when disenfranchised people get enough data about another lifestyle to contrast it with their own. Within individual societies, the balance of traditional versus modern experiences will shift as people use the information highway to expose themselves to a greater range of possibilities. Some cultures may feel under assault, as people pay greater attention to global issues or cultures, and less to traditional local ones.

Knowledge workers in industrialized countries will, in a sense, face new competition – just as some manufacturing works in industrialized countries have experienced competition from developing nations over the past decade. This will make the information highway a powerful force for international trade in intellectual goods and services … The net effect will be a wealthier world, which should be stabilizing. Developed nations, and workers in those nations, are likely to maintain a sizable economic lead. However, the gap between the have and have-not nations will diminish. Starting out behind is sometimes an advantage. It lets those who adopt late skip steps, and avoid the mistakes of the trailblazers. Some countries will never have industrialization. They will move directly into the Information Age.