Information and communications technology or
information and communication technology,
[1] usually abbreviated as
ICT, is often used as an extended synonym for
information technology (IT), but is usually a more general term that stresses the role of
unified communications and the integration of
telecommunications (
telephone lines and wireless signals), computers,
middleware as well as necessary software, storage- and audio-visual systems, which enable users to create, access, store, transmit, and manipulate information. In other words, ICT consists of IT as well as
telecommunication,
broadcast media, all types of audio and video processing and transmission and network based control and monitoring functions.
[2] The expression was first used in 1997
[3] in a report by Dennis Stevenson to the UK government
[4] and promoted by the new National Curriculum documents for the UK in 2000.
The term
ICT is now also used to refer to the merging (convergence) of audio-visual and telephone networks with computer networks through a single cabling or link system. There are large economic incentives (huge cost savings due to elimination of the telephone network) to merge the audio-visual, building management and telephone network with the computer network system using a single unified system of cabling, signal distribution and management. This in turn has spurred the growth of organizations with the term ICT in their names to indicate their specialization in the process of merging the different network systems.
Some of the dangers of ICTs include cyber-bullying, phishing as well as masquerading.
