Cybernauts Awake!

When astronomers look at distant galaxies they know that they are observing events which happened at least a million years ago. It is inevitable that by the time this book is published some aspects of cyberspace will have changed appreciably. Nevertheless, issues in computing have a longer persistence than is generally recognized - many developments hailed as new and revolutionary turn out to have been around for about 12 years. Thus we have tried to outline some specific implications for the various groups of people that are affected by these developments, and who might be reading this report. The specific groups we have in mind are:

• Information technologists. People with specific responsibility for designing, specifying and implementing cyber-systems also have a very specific and deep responsibility for creating the cyber-environment in which we live. Professions such as medicine have vital influence on our lives only at very specific times; by contrast, advanced societies are dependent on cyber-systems on a minute-by-minute basis.
  
  
• Directors of organizations commissioning cyber-systems. Since information technology professionals are ultimately employed to deliver benefits to organizations, the people who run such organizations (businesses, public sector bodies or charities) have enormous influence over the types of cyber-systems that are created. This influence is not always used consciously or wisely.
  
  
• Users of cyber-systems. We are all (including, of course, information technologists) in this category in many different ways. Even people at the leading edge of creating new cyber-systems for the most powerful providers of cyber-systems on the planet are (at least) as dependent on cyber-technology as the rest of us. As users we can 'vote with our feet', or increasingly with our clicks.
  
  
• Parents and guardians. The impact of cyberspace on our children's lives will be even more pervasive and profound than that on our own. What can, and should, concerned parents and guardians be doing?
  
  
• Christians interested in cyber-space. Since cyberspace changes the way in which we relate to each other it has spiritual implications which Christians may wish to explore.

These groups are not hard-and-fast divisions - people can fall into all five. In the story of the blind men and elephant, each person got hold of a different part of the elephant and concluded that it was very like a snake/spear/tree/wall. The story is mildly amusing because we can imagine seeing the whole elephant, and can easily see how misleading conclusions can be drawn from focusing on only one perspective. But our position in gaining perspectives on cyberspace is that no one can see it all, and it is changing so rapidly that by the time perspectives are communicated and shared they are liable to be out of date. Nevertheless, each set of 'implications' offers a different viewpoint on the rapidly evolving elephant that is cyberspace.