This is potentially beneficial as removing the visual cues about gender, age, ethnicity and social status allow different lines of communication to open up that might have been avoided in the physical world. The Information Society crosses traditional boundaries and as such comprises individuals from many different cultures. This cultural variability means that the expectations of individual cybercitizens can differ considerably. There are two important dimensions to consider regarding this variability. The first dimension is the continuum from individualism to collectivism.
Individualism emphasises self interest and promotes the self-realisation of talent and potential.
Its demands are universal. Collectivism emphasises pursuit of common interests and belonging to a set of hierarchical groups where, for example, the family group might be placed above the job group. The demands on group members are different to those on non group members. The second dimension concerns cultural differences in communication. In low context communication the majority of the information resides in the message itself whilst in high context communication is implicit.