page_title: Information society
section_title: Sociological uses
hierarchical_section_title: Information society / Sociological uses
caption_attribution_description: Español: Ayuntamiento, Tallin, EstoniaEnglish: Town Hall, Tallinn, Estonia
context_page_description: An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid information growth in variety and is somehow changing all aspects of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, warfare, and levels of democracy. The people who are able to partake in this form of society are sometimes called either computer users or even digital citizens, defined by K. Mossberger as “Those who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. This is one of many dozen internet terms that have been identified to suggest that humans are entering a new and different phase of society.
  Some of the markers of this steady change may be technological, economic, occupational, spatial, cultural, or a combination of all of these.
  Information society is seen as a successor to industrial society.
context_section_description: In sociology, informational society refers to a post-modern type of society. Theoreticians like Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells argue that since the 1970s a transformation from industrial society to informational society has happened on a global scale.
  As steam power was the technology standing behind industrial society, so information technology is seen as the catalyst for the changes in work organisation, societal structure and politics occurring in the late 20th century.
  In the book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler used the phrase super-industrial society to describe this type of society.  Other writers and thinkers have used terms like "post-industrial society" and "post-modern industrial society" with a similar meaning.
caption: Estonia, a small Baltic country in northern Europe, is one of the most advanced digital societies.[37]
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