Try to live without them...
The difficulty of measuring General Purpose Technologies
Like electrical power before it, ICTs have been recognized as a "General Purpose Technology" (GPT) that transforms economic relations, enhances productivity and creates new services and markets. GPTs have the following three characteristics:
Pervasiveness: GPTs spread to most sectors. This suggests that impacts should be measured at a higher level than the firm or disaggregated sectors. Higher levels of aggregation internalise the externalities or spill-over impacts that arise at low levels of aggregation.
Improvement: GPTs get better over time and, hence, should keep lowering the costs of its users. In fact, one of the problems associated with the study of ICTs is that they are constantly evolving. Apart from making quality adjustments for improvements in current technology, new technologies will emerge. ICTs are a moving target.
Innovation spawning: GPTs make it easier to invent and produce new products or processes. That is, they allow us not only to do things better but to do better things. New possibilities are created and specialization raises productivity.
This is an excerpt from the :
WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION/ICT
DEVELOPMENT REPORT
Measuring ICT for Social and Economic Development, 2006
Another example of the impact in the usage of ICT in our life: the way some people are using their smartphone. Some users bring them in their bedroom to stay connected 24h per day....
Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
www.infocomintelligence.com
infocom@videotron.ca
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