Strolling Through Informatics #30 - The Social Impact of Digital Transformation

previous #29 ––– next #31

di Enrico Nardelli

(versione italiana qua)

We closed the previous post by noting that politics plays a decisive role in governing the use of digital technology in the development of society. Indeed, the entire second part of this "walk" has been devoted to reflecting on the various ways in which digital technologies have changed and continue to change our world. I have already discussed the interplay between the digital dimension and other social dimensions, pointing out that the real challenge of digital transformation is first and foremost social and political in nature. I also observed — right at the opening of the second part — that the changes brought about by the informatics revolution are fundamentally different in kind from those of any previous revolution.

In this post I develop some reflections on these social changes, starting from a law I have formulated on this subject — the Law on the Social Impact of Digital Technology:

The social impact of digital technology is unpredictable,
even taking into account
the Law on the Social Impact of Digital Technology.

Those familiar with Hofstadter — the unforgettable author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach" (a popular essay on the cultural foundations of informatics that I highly recommend) — will recognize this as a variation on Hofstadter's Law of planning: ("Any task takes longer than you expect, even taking into account Hofstadter's Law"). I believe my variation is entirely defensible, given that the vast majority of humanity has been living alongside digital tools for barely a quarter of a century, during which governments have done precious little to teach even the most basic foundational concepts.

If we step back and look at the arc of human development over the past five thousand years — that is, since societies more complex than simple tribal communities first emerged — we notice that technological innovations, however transformative, were absorbed slowly. Change unfolded across many generations, giving social structures time to gradually adapt to what was happening.

With the spread of digital technology, however, we have witnessed a sudden upheaval that, in an extraordinarily short span of time, has upended a couple of fundamental principles that — for better or worse — have always governed our existence.

The most significant of these is the one that reminds us of the inescapability of an end. Every living being is destined to die, and with its passing, its deeds and relationships often fade into oblivion. In our digital world, this no longer holds: as digital representations grow ever more sophisticated, this overturning clashes increasingly with common sense. It is true that even centuries ago statues preserved the likenesses and achievements of illustrious figures for posterity — but now digital immortality is within reach of anyone.

The second reversal concerns the dissolution of the limits of space and time: any digital content can be copied and distributed instantaneously, anywhere. Our virtual alter ego (whose need for constitutional protection we have already discussed) can be multiplied endlessly and spread without any effort — a possibility that was once the exclusive province of the gods.

There is yet another effect bound up with this new condition: the concept of fame has undergone an unprecedented expansion. In the past, popularity was built slowly, passed on by word of mouth and hemmed in by geographical boundaries. The invention of the printing press, and later audiovisual media such as cinema and television, accelerated and broadened the reach of celebrity, giving rise to iconic figures in entertainment and sport. Today, thanks to the global network, whatever captures attention can do so simultaneously everywhere — while the vast majority of content remains invisible. Consider that, according to data from a couple of years ago, only a few dozen videos on YouTube have surpassed one billion views, out of an estimated ten trillion videos ever uploaded.

The crossing of these two "Pillars of Hercules" has had one radical consequence: information, once made public in digital form, can survive forever and everywhere. It comes as no surprise, then, that the natural right to be forgotten had to be enshrined in specific legislation in order to gain recognition in the digital age. And it was neither a swift nor a painless process: many lives were ruined before any regulation was put in place.

The fact that these once-impassable boundaries have been torn down within a single generation has catapulted us into a wholly new dimension — one where we risk sharing the fate of Ulysses, as recounted in his reckless voyage beyond the edge of the known world in Dante's Inferno.

    Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,
    At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,
    And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,
    Until the sea above us closed again.
(english translation by Longfellow from Columbia Univ. web site

The crux of the matter lies precisely in the law I mentioned earlier: our difficulty in grasping the impact of this technology stems both from its nature, which is far too alien to us, and from the fact that the exponentially growing combination of interactions between technologies and contexts risks outpacing our capacity for understanding.

And yet our evolutionary history — from simple primates to (near) masters of the planet — should teach us that every available resource will be exploited in every conceivable way. In many cases, foreseeing the consequences turns out to be extraordinarily difficult.

For this reason, faced with a digital universe of endless interactions and unforeseeable scenarios, we would need to proceed with the utmost caution. And yet, at times, it looks as though we are hurtling forward at full speed with our eyes shut, heading straight for the edge of the abyss.

What is needed, then, is constant attention — rigorous vigilance every time we reach for the "magic wand" of digital technology. Because we might find ourselves in the shoes of the sorcerer's apprentice, with no one capable of stepping in when things spiral out of control.

This is precisely why this wand cannot be left in the hands of the big tech companies, which — thanks to their enormous economic power — exert a decisive influence over every means of communication, telling us only of the "glorious and progressive futures" awaiting humanity while concealing the negative consequences. We will see a striking example of this in the next post.

[[The posts in this series are based on the Author's book (in Italian) La rivoluzione informatica: conoscenza, consapevolezza e potere nella società digitale, (= The Informatics Revolution: Knowledge, Awareness and Power in the Digital Society) to which readers are referred for further reading]].

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The original version (in italian) has been published by "Osservatorio sullo Stato digitale" (= Observatory on Digital State) of IRPA - Istituto di Ricerche sulla Pubblica Amministrazione (= Research Institute on Public Administration) on 30 April 2025.