Race Online

“It’s a real testament to how mainstream the internet has become that Hollywood has made a film about Facebook. But even an old dotcom dinosaur like me can work out that the internet has changed life beyond recognition. In Britain we are among the most sophisticated web users in the world: almost 40 million of us use the internet, 30.5 million of us are on Facebook, and 4.3 million already use Twitter.

However, 20 years since its invention, it’s sometimes easy to forget the seismic shift that the internet has prompted in society, in government and in business. It’s already proven every bit as revolutionary a technology as the steam engine and car were before it. It’s changed how we learn, how we talk, how we earn, love and play. And it will continue to change us in ways we haven’t even begun to imagine.

Yet 9.2 million of us have never been online. Of which four million are the least economically advantaged: older people, people on low incomes, those in social housing, and the unemployed. These are huge – and unacceptable – numbers.”

Martha Lane Fox in The Big Issue, October 2010

About George

George Metcalfe recently graduated with Distinction as Master of Architecture from the WSA. A freelance designer and multi-creative, he is interested in the intersection between architecture, urbanism and information communication technology.

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