Chapter 3

Specific Issues in Science,

Technology, and Society
LESSON 1 THE INFORMATION AGE
Information Age
The INFORMATION AGE is defined as a “period starting
in the last quarter of the 20th century when information
became effortlessly accessible through publications and
through the management of information by computers
and computer networks” (Vocabulary.com, n.d.). The
means of conveying symbolic information (e.g. writing,
math, other codes) among humans have evolved with
increasing speed. The Information Age is also called the
Digital Age and the New Media Age because it was
associated with the development of computers.
According to James R. Messenger who proposed
the Theory of Information Age in 1982, “the
Information Age is a true new age based upon the
interconnection of computers via
telecommunications, with these information
systems operating on both a real-time and as-
needed basis. Furthermore, the primary factors
driving this new age forward are convenience and
user-friendliness which, in turn, will create user
dependence.”
HISTORY
Year Event
3000 BC Sumerian writing system used pictographs to represent words
2900 BC Beginnings of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing
1300 BC Tortoise shell and oracle bone writing were used
500 BC Papyrus roll was used
220 BC Chinese small seal writing was developed
100 AD Book (parchment codex)
105 AD Woodblock printing and paper was invented by the Chinese
1455 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press using movable metal type
1755 Samuel Johnson’s dictionary standardized English spelling
1802 • The Library of Congress was established
• Invention of the carbon arc lamp
 Year Event
1824 Research on persistence of vision published
1830s • First viable design for a digital computer
• Augusta Lady Byron writes the world’s first computer program
1837 Invention of the telegraph in Great Britain and the United States
1861 Motion pictures were projected onto a screen
1876 Dewey Decimal System was introduced
1877 Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated high-speed photography
1899 First magnetic recordings were released
1902 Motion picture special effects were used
1906 Lee DeForest invented the electronic amplifying tube (triode)
1923 Television camera tube was invented by Zvorkyn
1926 First practical sound movie
1939 Regularly scheduled television broadcasting began in the US
1940s Beginnings of information science as a discipline
 Year Event
1945 Vannevar Bush foresaw the invention of hypertext
1946 ENIAC computer was developed
1948 Birth of field-of-information theory proposed by Claude E. Shannon
1957 Planar transistor was developed by Jean Hoerni
1958 First integrated circuit
1960s Library of Congress developed LC MARC (machine-readable code)
1969 UNIX operating system was developed, which could handle multitasking
1971 Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip
1972 Optical laserdisc was developed by Philips and MCA
1974 MCA and Philips agreed on a standard videodisc encoding format
1975 Altair Microcomputer Kit was released: first personal computer for the
public
1977 RadioShack introduced the first complete personal computer
1984 Apple Macintosh computer was introduced
 Year Event
Mid 1980s Artificial intelligence was separated from information science
1987 Hypercard was developed by Bill Atkinson recipe box metaphor
1991 Four hundred fifty complete works of literature on one CD-ROM was
released
January 1997 RSA (encryption and network security software) Internet security code
cracked for a 48-bit number
As man evolved, information and its dissemination
has also evolved in many ways.

But Information got ahead of us. It started to grow

at a rate we were unprepared to handle.

INFORMATION ANXIETY
Truths of the Information Age
(Robert Harris)
• 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.
• 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.
• Media presence creates the story.
• The medium selects the message.
• The whole truth is a pursuit.
COMPUTER
Computers are among
the most important
contributions of
advances in the
Information Age to
society. It is an
electronic device that
stores and processes
data (information).
TYPES OF COMPUTER
• Personal Computer (PC)
• Desktop Computer
• Laptops
• Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
• Server
• Mainframes
• Wearable Computers
The WORLD WIDE WEB (Internet)
Several historians trace the origin of the Internet to
Claude E. Shannon, an American Mathematician
who was considered as the “Father of Information
Theory.”

The Internet is a worldwide system of

interconnected networks that facilitate data
transmission among innumerable computers.
It was developed during the 1970s by the
Department of Defense. In case of an attack,
military advisers suggested the advantage of being
able to operate on one computer from another
terminal.

In the early days, the Internet was used mainly by

scientists to communicate with other scientists. The
Internet remained under government control until
1984 (Rouse, 2014).
One early problem faced by Internet users was
SPEED. Phone lines could only transmit information
at a limited rate. The development of fiber-optic
cables allowed for billions of bits of information to
be received every minute.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, directors of a Stanford

research project, built a search engine that listed
results to reflect page popularity when they
determined that the most popular result would
frequently be the most usable. That is
Consequently, companies whose businesses are
built on digitized information have become valuable
and powerful in a relatively short period of time; the
current Information Age has spawned its own breed
of wealthy influential brokers, from Microsoft’s Bill
Gates to Apple’s Steve Jobs to Facebook’s Mark
Zuckerberg.
SUMMARY
Nowadays, information could be shared or transferred
quickly. People are becoming more interested in sharing
information about themselves. Various aspects of our
society are also being influenced by the Information Age
especially communication, economics, industry, health,
and the environment. The rapid upgrade of information
poses both positive and negative impacts to our society.
Therefore, we need to carefully check our motives before
disseminating information and we also need to verify
information before believing them and using and sharing
them. We should share information that could help
improve our lives and others.