Trust as a systemic problem

This chapter aims at exploring how the concept of trust changes when, instead of interactions mostly based on personal involvement, relationships are taken into consideration in which this direct link loosens, as it happens when tools and programs based on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) are introduced in education (and not only). To a greater articulation of social functioning at many different levels corresponds a higher specificity and efficacy in the ability to handle complex problems but also the risk of a lack of “return” for trust investment that each individual makes towards society. The approach to the problem is systemic and it tries to highlight how the disembedding (Giddens, 1994, p. 21) that characterize our society requires new ways of return for the trust investment, that is new forms of authentic communication.