Social impact of ICT services -different impact in different countries-

The environmental, social and economic impacts of videoconferencing in the USA and Japan were evaluated and compared quantitatively. For this purpose we used a new index, named the “Gross Social Feel-good (GSF) index”, which was developed for evaluating both the positive and negative effects of ICT services. The impacts of videoconferencing in the two countries were different especially as regards the economy and social (comfort) indexes. This case study clarified the difficulties involved in applying the GSF index to different countries.