ICT e società dell'informazione

[Autom. eng. transl.] IT today is not a topic for (only) technicians: five billion people connected to the internet make up the digital world, a virtual reality that complements the real world. Understanding how society has evolved and how it interacts with technology is not just technique, it is also sociology, politics, law, psychology, philosophy and education. Every technological innovation has always had a corresponding social impact, initially limited, then gradually deeper. Today artificial intelligence, algorithms, NFTs, metaverse, virtual and augmented reality, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, cybersecurity are terms that often appear in more or less specialized media articles, in advertisements and also in the usual lexicon. They represent the evolution of technology and the context of use, but do we know how they were born, what they mean for the impact they have on the lives of five billion people, what are the phenomena they generate and what problems they entail? The intent of the Authors, which draws inspiration from the research and projects carried out with CeTIF, the Research Center on Technologies, Innovation and Financial Services of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, is to explain how modern technologies work to humanists, because can understand what is at the basis of the digitalisation of society, what it expresses itself in, what ethical problems it raises, what behaviors it stimulates and what new and worrying pathologies it has brought to the surface, such as for example the trend of extreme selfies and many other pathologies behavioural, psychological and physical. A world where virtual reality, the metaverse, new forms of art, investment and finance take shape and spread throughout society, creating new opportunities but also new risks that should be known about. The technological aspects are illustrated in a simple way, without the need for technical preparation: what you need can be found in the pages of this manual. The hope is to involve and excite as many students as possible, because - even if they will not dedicate themselves to these issues in their future - if they have understood them and spread them it will be an important result.