Since the 1950s, businesses and other organizations have adopted computers and computer-based tools with the goal of improving productivity — in other words, raising workers' output per hour of work. The United States alone has spent over $4 trillion on information technology and related expenses since 1960; this amounts to an annual average of about 10 percent of US gross domestic product.33 In the 1960s, automation improved productivity dramatically. But since then, productivity across the United States' economy has grown only slowly. Improved productivity has remained elusive even for organizations which firmly believe that ICTs have helped them. Numerous economists and others34 have studied this so-called "productivity paradox." The phenomenon is widely recognized, though its explanation remains contested.
One key element of the explanation is the phenomenon of unanticipated consequences. Gains achieved through ICT-based improvements are often counterbalanced by increased costs in other areas. Such costs have proven very difficult to anticipate. They tend to take such forms as:
The productivity paradox vividly illustrates the enormous significance of unanticipated consequences of technological change.
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