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The preceding sections have highlighted ways in which new information technologies are improving the quality of people’s lives. This section will look at two of the leading sets of concerns that have been raised with respect to the growth of IT.
IT is rapidly creating a knowledge economy, in which productivity and prosperity will increasingly come to depend on access to information and on the ability to make productive use of it. But access to new IT – and therefore to knowledge – varies widely within countries, including the United States, and from country to country. As knowledge critical to enhancing social welfare and economic opportunity increasingly comes to depend on IT, these gaps in access to technology, frequently called “digital divides,” will reinforce national and international gaps in living standards.