Social tools are those that augment human social structures and capabilities with new communications channels, behavioural patterns and participant abilities. For example, the persistent “contactability” provided by mobile phones has altered our social expectations and enabled a whole range of behaviour: “swarming” to ad hoc events; “slow background conversations” and status updates via SMS; contact-details exchange allowing for very quick social link creation.

Intelligence amplification (IA) refers to the effective use of information technology in augmenting human intelligence. The idea was first proposed in the 1950s and 1960s by cybernetics and early computer pioneers.