IMPACTS OF THE INTERNET – A COMMENT

I suggest that there are impacts in the developing nations from the use of the Internet. There are also impacts from non-use of the Internet, both in terms of impacts of using it less than others do, or using it less than one might or might be expected to do.

I suggest that impacts may be positive or they may be negative.

Thus one can think of the following table that might be useful for considering Internet policy (pardon the dashes used for spacing within the table):

---------------l----Use of the Internet---l-Non-use of the Internet-l
__________l____________________l____________________l
Positive-----l------------------------------l------------------------------l
__________l____________________l____________________l
Negative----l------------------------------l------------------------------l
__________l____________________l____________________l

I suspect that most of the popular literature on the Internet focuses on the potential positive impacts of use of the Internet, or (in Digital Divide literature) on the potential negative impacts of non-use of the Internet. It would probably be useful to spend time considering the other boxes in the table!