Social impact of ‘information age’

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 23

Social impact of ‘information age’

Social impact issues in the new “information age” dominated the first day of the recent Eighth New Zealand Computer Conference in Wellington. Professor Tom Stonier, professor of science and society at the University of Bradford and president of Applied Systems Knowledge, the largest and leading educational software house in the United Kingdom, gave a keynote address to the conference in which he outlined his view of the future and urged the audience to get public opinion behind a restructuring of our economic and social systems. Professor Stonier believes that the number one problem confronting Western society is unemployment. “Within two to three decades it will take no more than ten per cent of the labour force for all materials production,” he said.

“Not only labour inputs into materials production, but also other areas will be markedly reduced. This includes wholesaling and retailing, banking, insurance, offices of all sorts including Government offices, and certain categories of middle class employment such as estate agents and ticket agents.

“The logical way to move from an industrial to an information economy is by a massive expansion of education, coupled to a vastly expanded programme of research and development. “This will yield the new technologies and labour and managerial skills to create new wealth. This new wealth provides the revenues to pay for the expansion in public service jobs in health care, education, and other areas.

“During the transition period, it is only the public service sector which can provide the jobs lost at an accelerating pace in the private sector. The function of the private sector will be to provide wealth, not jobs. “The most sensible programme for the Government is to update the human capital — the data base of society. It must double the education budget,” he said. Professor Stonier proposes that we create an attractive education system “that will keep people off the dole.” It will also ease unemployment by providing more jobs for teachers and ancillary education staff. “There must also be new education objectives,” he said. “Instead of teaching kids how to make a living, you should be teaching kids how to live, with a cradle-to-grave education system.” The professor predicted that within seven years, most middle class homes will have a computer. “Not having a computer is going to be as crippling as not being able to read or write,” he said. He believes that the Government should provide a computer for every child, so that no child is disadvantaged. Children will use the computer at home to learn the traditional lessons and will go to school to play and interact with other children.

“With a computer at home children will learn to read by the age of three and will know calculus by the age of 12,” he said. Pressed at question time about how society will cope when there is less need for labour, Professor Stonier argued for a change in the “protestant work ethic.” “The work week should be cut by 10 per cent every five years,” he said.

Mr Clive Jenkins, general secretary of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs in the United Kingdom and another keynote speaker on the first day, took a more down-to-earth and unionoriented view of coping with

the changes but agreed with Professor Stonier in the importance of education. Mr Jenkins proposed that the minimum school leaving age should be 24. “It will be possible for people to have their first marriage, their first children and their first divorce while they are still at school,” he said to make the audience aware of the consequences.

“To negotiate technology agreements is an initial step in the trade union response to the problems of technological change,” said Mr Jenkins. “We want to see protection of jobs, improved working conditions, shorter working time and better health and safety.”

Mr Jenkins is proposing a joint agreement between unions and management on the choice of new equipment and that the workers should share in the savings made.

“Unions will seek to become more involved in the decision-making process involved in systems design,” said Mr Jenkins. “Standards of work organisation will have to be established by unions in the same way as they have already established ergonomic standards for visual display units. For example, the avoidance of ‘V.D.U. operator’ jobs could be a standard to embody in systems design procedures.”

Mr Jenkins said his association was still unhappy with V.D.U.S. “Studies of people who use V.D.U.S show that they often suffer from headache, eyetrouble, tiredness, backache, depression and wrist pain. We also do not want pregnant women in front of V.D.U.s,” he said. “Unions will be the agents of change, net just a reactive force. The trade unions have the promise of a new life-style, with the objective of culture for all.”

Taking aim squarely at the conference attendees, Mr Jenkins concluded his address with a prediction that the group most threatened by the new technology will be the middle managers.