Redressing the Balance: A Yin-Yang Perspective on Information Technology

Information is an essential aspect of how we interact with the world around us. We acquire information and then integrate it to build knowledge, understanding, and trust, which in turn serve in preparing actions. Information technology (IT) is supposed to support all these phases of information processing. But does it? An assessment of IT through the yin-yang lens from Chinese philosophy shows that over the last decades, support for the yin processes of building knowledge, understanding, and trust has been neglected, the focus of most research and development having been on the yang processes of acting. IT shares this imbalance with other aspects of Western and globalized culture. I discuss possible directions for re-establishing a yin-yang balance in IT, as a small contribution to redressing the balance in the world at large.