The Image of the Information Society in Culture: Optimism Gives Way to Pessimism?

Abstract

During its existence, the idea of an information society has undergone significant changes, many concepts of the information society have appeared, as well as re­lated concepts of a network, communicative, digital society. The purpose of this article is to trace the transformation of the “image” of the information society in culture from the stage of expectations of the embodiment of its main parame­ters to the peculiarities of vision and assessment of its characteristics, which have become everyday reality today. In the definitions and assessments of the in­formation society, proposed by philosophers and sociologists at the end of the last century, its technological characteristics, which are quite optimistic for society, were emphasized. Three decades later, negative assessments of the mod­ern “information landscape”, such as Internet addiction, information pollution, information stress, began to prevail in discussions about the impact of these characteristics on everyday life. “Technological optimism” is replaced by “hu­manitarian pessimism”, that is, the emphasis from technological advances is shifted to the impact of information technology on a person, his psycho-emo­tional state, consciousness, worldview, and cognitive abilities. The objectives of the article include the analysis of real changes in consciousness, psyche and hu­man brain, caused by the introduction of information technology in the daily life of people. All these processes lead to the formation of a negative image of the “digital society”, to the rejection of the realities associated with it. But the fact that the information society in its ideal embodiment did not take place does not negate the growing role of information technologies in modern life. And against this background, the author believes, a purposeful, including a philo­sophical analysis of relevant problems is needed in order to understand how to balance the image of the “person – information environment” system. Informa­tion ecology can play a significant role in such analysis.