||This work is focused on the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the 21st century and their social and economic aspects. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the history of the nowadays commonly used information and communication technologies, such as personal computer, mobile phone and internet. The second chapter describes the development of ICT in the context of individuals, households and businesses. The third section focuses on information economy with regard to the events in the ICT sector, expenditures, investments and foreign commerce with ICT. The next chapter studies social networks in detail, as strong marketing and economic instruments and further studies their development up to the present form. The fifth chapter deals with the positive and negative social and economic aspects of ICT and their combination. The main question of this paper is whether the benefits of ICT outweigh the negatives, now and in the future. The analysis of the paper comes to the conclusion that, the positives still prevail but it will be needed to minimize the negative impacts of ICT in the social field in the future and make the Internet safer.