Introduction

Abstract

There is no doubt that the development and implementation of information and communication technology (ICT) during the last decades has had – and still has – a major impact on all levels of society. One only has to think of the Arab Twitter Revolution in the spring of 2011. Both society as a whole and individual lives have changed dramatically as a result of ICT implementation. In this book, the focus is on the effects of ICT on work and, more in particular, on quality of working life. That ICT has had an impact on working life is without a doubt: whole jobs that had been around for “ages” have disappeared (e.g., the teller at a bank, the stenotypist) and have been replaced with other, new sort of jobs (e.g., database manager, information technology specialist, web designer, etc.). Apart from jobs that have disappeared, nearly all existing jobs have changed tremendously. Even in “old-fashioned jobs” such as the agricultural industry or construction industry, ICT has a major impact. Most of the jobs have changed tremendously because access to and exchange of information have become many times faster. Only 20 years ago, if we needed specific information from colleagues and friends, such as a copy of a recent published journal article, we sent letters by postal mail, which would take at least 2 days to arrive, and it would last at least another 2 days before the response would get back to the sender. Nowadays, the exchange of information is almost instantaneously. Instead of having to go to the library and use all kinds of antiquated search systems to find a certain article or book, we use Google and the results are shown in milliseconds. The big question however is: does this instantaneous access to and exchange of information make us happier? Does it improve the quality of our working lives? In this chapter, we briefly describe the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and the effects of ICT in particular on work.