Technology And Its Impacts On The Family

The United Nations Workshop on Technology and Families was held in Dublin, Ireland from 6 to 10 October 1998. The Meeting was organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, Division for Social Policy and Development, in close cooperation with the Government of Ireland, Department of Social Community and Family Affairs, and in association with Quest Campus.

The Meeting was opened by the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs of Ireland. In his opening statement, the Minister noted, inter alia, that "there can be no doubting the immense challenges and opportunities that all development of global communications and technological advancement present in all areas of our lives: not least in how we can develop programmes to ensure the widest possible participation in the Information Society. The new technologies create the potential for massive changes in how we do business and how we live our lives. However, the kind of future society we live in is substantially determined by the choices that we, as citizens and as a society, make now. The future well­being of people, families and their communities is central to those choices. It is their vision of the kind of society they would like to have that technological development must serve".

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