The Information Age

The Information Age (Digital Age)

• When was the last time you used something
digital?
The Information Age (Digital Age)

➢ Also called the

➢ last quarter of the

➢ information became effortlessly accessible through

publications and through the management of information
by computers and computer networks
 The Information Age (Digital Age)
• The focus of S&T and society became
“information” itself (handling & conveying it)
• Progress in electronics and computers
caused information to be one of the most
important commodities
• Advances in biology
✓ Genetics – revolution in information science
(recombinant DNA)
✓ The immune system – also an information processing
system

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
 Information & Society
BEFORE NOW
✓During Galileo’s and Newton’s time, people ✓Today, the human mind is pictured
were viewed as complicated mechanical as a complicated computer
machines

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
 Information & Society
BEFORE NOW
✓Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham ✓Steven Jobs and William Gates
Bell, and Henry Ford

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
 Information & Society
BEFORE NOW
✓Screw and bolt in the Industrial era ✓ Microchip (inventors were awarded
a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000)

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
 Information & Society
BEFORE NOW
✓Majority of labor force was into ✓Majority are engaged in supply
manufacturing of goods of services

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
 Information & Globalization

• Communication worldwide
became cheap (with new
phone systems and Internet)
• Changed the way people work
✓ Information-based work
✓ Business trends
✓ Global banking
✓ Scientific enterprise/research
Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
Problems with Information Age
• Infringement of personal privacy

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
Problems with Information Age

• Excessive use of computers in

teaching young children may
impoverish the development of
intellectual capabilities
✓ “Knowledge” is replaced by mere
“data”
✓ Ideas contain data, but data
contain no ideas

Bunch, B and Hellemans, A. The History of Science and Technology. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, USA. 2004.
 Facts on the Information Age
• Information must compete.
• Newer is equated with truer.
• Selection is a viewpoint.
• The media sells what the culture buys.
• The early word gets the perm.
Serafica et al. Science, Technology, and Society. Rex Bookstore. Manila, Philippines. 2018
 Facts on the Information Age
• You are what you eat and so is your brain.
• Anything in great demand will be
counterfeited.
• Ideas are seen as controversial.
• Undead information walks ever on.
Serafica et al. Science, Technology, and Society. Rex Bookstore. Manila, Philippines. 2018
 Facts on the Information Age

• Media presence creates the story.

• The medium selects the message.
• The whole truth is a pursuit.

Serafica et al. Science, Technology, and Society. Rex Bookstore. Manila, Philippines. 2018
What brought us here?
History of Information
• “in form” – what we are
“What makes a tree a tree? And not
cement?”
• For 2000 years, explanation/answers
were based on the head (natural
philosophy/reason)
• Oral tradition – fascination with
sounds and words
• Print and written culture – printing
press
History of Information
• Alan Turing broke the Nazi code
• Developed the concept of computers
• Father of Artificial Intelligence

Alan Turing
1912-1954 Enigma Machine Bombe Machine
Artificial intelligence
• use of machines to imitate the way
humans think and behave

• replicate in a computer the actions

and functions of biological neurons
found in the human body