Abstract

The influence of socio-economic factors in ICT and Internet use is at the core of how the knowledge society will develop. Socio-economic status reinforces some practices for younger age groups, mirroring different needs for peer-to-peer communication and knowledge development. Differences by educational level are larger for intensity and diversity of Internet use, strongly related to social capital, compared to differences by educational level in perceived usefulness and attitudes toward computers, expecially in small and medium-sized enterprises. In this editorial notes, we argue that digitization of information, combined with the Internet use, is a form of general-purpose technology à la Helpman and Trajtenberg that may produce a high level of connectivity between actors and ideas, new activities and new products, with some long-run effects not so far strictly observable and measurable in terms of higher efficiency and productivity.