This week Radio 4's 'Analysis' did a wonderful programme on the two out of three Britons that use search - are they able to make better informed decisions than ten years ago even though 95% of world data is still unavailable online?
Before long, say the Web futurologists, search engines like Google will have indexed almost all the world's vital information, including video and books. We will all have personal digital identities that represent and store our whole lives in electronic form.
While IT can clearly transform some parts of life, in other areas there is much more doubt. New research has found that many users just do not know how to judge what is out there. Vital information may be missing.
Do we have time to make the most of what new technology offers? And how far does the commercial scramble for our attention on the Web bring its own distortions and dangers?
In "Searching Questions" Diane Coyle investigates our attempts to make the most of the "information society" with experts including the author and Google specialist John Battelle, expert on the Web Professor Wendy Hall, historian of technology David Edgerton and Ralph Schroeder of the Oxford Internet Institute.
