Influence of Information Technologies on Kinesiology and Physical Education

The rapid advances made in information technologies over the past few years and the belief that technological change is neither additive nor subtractive to our state of affairs but that it generates total change, suggests that it is timely to consider the implications of these technologies for teaching, research, and professional activity. The task of trying to understand the future influence of information technologies is a challenging one because technology is shaped by an array of forces that includes tradition, politics, economic interests, history, philosophy, and competing technologies. The paper addresses the influence of technology under the following general topics: (a) Promise or peril? Two views on information technology; (b) The difficulty of accurately predicting the future role of information technology; (c) An overview of technological advances and some predictions; and (d) Aspects of special interest—virtual reality, Information Highway, thinking “better” with computers, and devaluation of the body.