"It's a society where the main activities in which people are engaged are organised fundamentally in networks, rather than in vertical organisations.
"The difference is very simple - network technologies. It's not the same thing to be constantly interactive at the speed of light than just simply have a network of friends and people.
"So all networks exist, but the connection between everything and everything - be it financial markets, politics, culture, media, communications, etc - that's new because of the new digital technologies."
Paul Mason: So we live in a network society. Could we reverse out of a network society?
"Can we reverse to a pre-electricity world? It's the same thing. No we can't.
"Although many people now are saying 'well why we don't start all over again?' It's a huge movement called the de-growth movement. Some people would try to go to different forms of communal organisation, etc.ciety
"However, the interesting thing is for the people to organise and debate and mobilise for de-growth and communalism, they have to use the internet.
"We live in a culture of not virtual reality, but real virtuality because our virtuality - meaning the internet networks - are a fundamental part of our reality.
"All the studies on the internet show that people who are more social on the internet are also more social face-to-face."
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