Planet Internet Challenges Facing Informatics

The Internet has during the past few years experienced an explosive growth. It is seen as a unifying socio-technical concept for the development of open and simple standards. As such it has proven to be a strong force in setting the agenda for the development and use of software. How can we explain this change, and what are the general issues? What impact do the resulting radical changes have on society and social institutions? How do they affect work, education, health care, legal and political institutions? How do they change the conditions of doing business and making a living, of building families and becoming a professional? The paper is unconventional in providing highlights from a book documenting the results from a longitudinal research network. The rationale is to raise a set of general issues and as such, in the format of a paper, enable a more strategic discussion about our discipline and the main challenges we in informatics are faced with. From big calculator to global network Since the computers were first invented, in the 1940s, their use has undergone a number of radical changes. First, the computer was a calculator built and operated by scientists in white coats. With the emergence of commercial mainframe computers in the 1960s, the computer became the central information processor for businesses. In the early 1980s the computer changed into becoming a personal productivity tool supporting the individual. But soon the personal computers sitting on people’s desks were connected in local area networks, enabling sharing of resources and cooperation. The explosive adoption of Internet technologies during the 1990s has woven such local networks into a global network, making up the infrastructure of information society. The technology is now marketed as a communication medium, and the future looks bright for the computer playing the role of personal intelligent agent or assistant. How can we explain these changes, and what are the general issues? What impact do these radical changes have on society and social institutions? How do they affect work, education, health care, legal and political institutions? How do they change the