Chapter 1 of Information: An Very Short Introduction was incredibly interesting. Floridi’s analysis of ICTs is incredibly relevant to what is occurring today, 13 years later. As the years have progressed, we have come to somewhat minimize the negative impacts that new technologies are having on society. There is a bigger immersion in the infosphere than ever before. Nowadays, certain people spend more time on their phones than physically interacting with each other. As described, in the text, crimes like identity theft caused about $52.6 billion in losses in 2002, I can’t imagine what the number is in 2023.

As the article states, the typical phases of the life cycle of information is occurrence, transmission, processing and management, and usage. A large portion of society seems to skip the processing & management phase. A lot of times in the news, you are seeing false claims being presented without actual evidence, individuals posting false information on social media without fact-checking, etc… This is one of the great numbers of issues that have resulted from ICTs in the past 5 decades since its emergence. However, that is not say that ICTs have not had a large positive impact on society. Education and communication has improved greatly. Being able to have access to information at the touch of your fingertips has revolutionized the way we have developed as a society; there is no need to carry around heavy books when you have a phone that can do more and provide more; there is no possible loss of information when everything is stored in a cloud. One can message someone on the other side of the planet and in a matter of a blink, they have received the message.

As ICTs improve, human quality of life improves, however, these improvements should also consider the essence of what being human is. They should be designed in a way that it forces individuals to stay in touch with their physical being as much as their digital being.