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Evolution of the Information Age

This document traces the development of the information age from Gutenberg's printing press through the rise of social media and discusses the impacts of increased information accessibility on society. It outlines how advancements like the printing press, computers, the internet, and social media have changed how information is acquired, stored, shared and influenced human lives. The learning objectives are to understand the history of the information age and analyze its social and personal impacts.

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Ruby Alintana Panti
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114 views5 pages

Evolution of the Information Age

This document traces the development of the information age from Gutenberg's printing press through the rise of social media and discusses the impacts of increased information accessibility on society. It outlines how advancements like the printing press, computers, the internet, and social media have changed how information is acquired, stored, shared and influenced human lives. The learning objectives are to understand the history of the information age and analyze its social and personal impacts.

Uploaded by

Ruby Alintana Panti
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
  • Information Age
  • Gutenberg to Social Media and Influence
  • Applications and Assignments

Chapter 1 module 2: Information Age

This section traces the development of the information age and discusses
its impact on society. It tackles the various ways to the information age and
social media have influenced society and human lives.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this topic, students will be able to:
1. Trace the development of the information age from the introduction of
Gutenberg’s press up to the era of social media.
2. Determine the impacts of information age to society; and
3. Analyze the ways in which the information age and social media influence
human lives.

Pre-assessment Activity: Situation

Imagine that you are at lost in the wilderness and there is a substitution
cypher (a method of encrypting message in which the letters of the original
text are systematically replaced by different alphabet) that you need to answer
to solve your dilemma.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R

Hint: This is the first thing that you will be doing when you are at lost

Encrypted word: AFXGJESLAGF KWSJUZAFY

Answer: __________________________________

PRESENTATION OF CONTENTS

Information plays an important role in understanding the truth and reality.


If there are information available, our lives might be enigmatic and chaotic.
The development of our system of acquiring, storing and retrieving information
had spurt with the advent of science and technology and now we are in the
century which is considered by many as the Information Age.

Information Age is the period starting in the last quarter of the 20th century
when information became effortlessly accessible through publication and
through the management of information by computers and computer
networks. It is a true new age based upon the interconnection of computers
via telecommunications, with these systems operating on both real-time and
as needed basis- Theory of Information Age (Messenger, 1982).

Before it has reached its current state, constant change has taken place
in the form of information revolution. By 1960’s to 1970’s, rapid growth of
information resulted to difficulty in collecting and managing them1980’s there
was Information Anxiety (Richard Wurman). In 1990’s, information became the
currency of the business world. At present, information turned out to be a
commodity, an over developed product, mass produced and unspecialized.

Robert Harris has outlined the truths about Information Age. He described
it as follows
1. Information must complete
2. Newer is equated to truer
3. Selection is a viewpoint
4. The media sells what the culture buys
5. The early word gets the perm
6. You are what you eat and so is your brain
7. Anything in great demand will be counterfeited
8. Ideas are seen as controversial
9. Undead information walks ever on
10. Media presence creates the story
11. The medium selects the message
12. The whole truth is a pursuit

Accessibility of information was made faster and easier with the aid of
computer. One of the significant applications of computers for science and
research is evident in the field of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is the
application of information technology to store, organize and analyze vast
amount of biological data which is available in the form sequences and
structures of proteins – the building blocks of organisms and nucleic acids-
the information carrier (Madan, n.d.) Such was established because of the
need to create databases of biological sequences. Application includes the
Human Genome Project, Pharmacogenomics Drug Discovery, Gene Finder
and Annotator.

GUTENBERG TO SOCIAL MEDIA

German goldsmith, Johannes Gutenberg, invented the printing press


around 1440. This invention was a result
of finding a way to improve the manual,
tedious, and slow printing methods. A
printing press is a device that applies
pressure to an inked surface lying on a
print medium, such as cloth or paper, to
transfer ink. Gutenberg’s hand mould
printing press led to the creation of metal
movable type. Later the two inventions
were combined to make printing methods
faster and they drastically reduced the
costs of printing documents.
The Gutenberg
Press([Link])
The beginnings of mass communication can be traced back to the
invention of the printing press. The development of a fast and easy way of
disseminating information on print permanently reformed the structure of
society. Political and religious authorities who took pride in being learned and
threatened by the sudden rise of literacy among people. With the rise of the
printing press, the printing press made the mass production of books possible
which made books accessible not only in the upper class.
“Enigma M4” Cypher Machine
([Link])
As years progressed, calculations
became involved in communication
due to the rapid developments in the
trade sector. Back then, people who
compiled actuarial tables and did
engineering calculations served as
“computers”. During World War II, the
Allies, (US, Canada, Britain, France,
USSR, Australia, etc.), countries that
opposed the Axis powers (Germany,
Japan, Italy, Hungary Romania, and
Bulgaria), were challenge with the
serious shortage of human computers for military calculations. When soldiers
left for war, the shortage got worse, so the United States addressed the
problem by creating the Harvard Mark 1, a general-purpose
electromechanical computer that was 50 feet long and capable of doing
calculations in seconds that usually took people hours. At the same time,
Britain needed mathematicians to crack the German Navy’s Enigma code.
The Enigma was an enciphering machine that the German armed forces used
to securely send messages.

Alan Turing, an English mathematician, was


hired in 1936 by the British top-secret Government
Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park to break
the Enigma code. His code-breaking methods
became an industrial process having 12,000 people
working 24/7.

To counteract this, the Nazis made the Enigma


more complicated having approximately 10¹¹⁴
possible permutations of every encrypted message.
Turing, working on the side of the Allies, invented
Bombe, an electromechanical machine that enabled
the British to decipher encrypted messages of the German Enigma machine.
This contribution of Turing along with other cryptologists shortened the war by
two years (Munro,2012).

In his paper On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the


Entscheidungsproblem, first published in 1937, Turing presented a theoretical
machine called Turing machine that can solve any problem from simple
instructions encoded on a paper tape. He also demonstrated the simulation of
Turing machine to construct a single Universal Machine. This became the
foundation of computer science and the invention of a machine later called a
computer, that can solve any problem by performing any task from q written
program (DeHaan,2012).
In the 1970s, the
generation who
witnessed the dawn of
the computer age was
prescribed as the
generation with
“electronic brains”. The
people of this generation
were the first to be
introduced to personal
computers (PCs). Back
then, Homebrew
Computer Club, an early
computer hobbyist group,
gathered regularly to trade parts of computer and hardware and talked
about how to make computers more accessible to everyone. Many
members of Apple I, also called Apple-1 or Apple Computer 1

the club ended up being high-profile entrepreneurs, including the founders


of Apple Inc. In 1976 Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc., developed the
computer that made him famous: The Apple I. Wozniak designed the
operating system, hardware, and circuit board of the computer all by himself.
Steve Jobs, Wozniak’s friend, suggested to sell the Apple I as a fully
assembled printed circuit board. This jump started their career ass founders of
Apple Inc.

The information age, which progressed from the invention of the printing
press to the development of numerous social media platforms, has immensely
influenced the lives of the people. The impact of these innovations can be
advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the use of these
technologies.

APPLICATION
Activity 1 MODULE 2
Arrange the photos chronologically by writing numbers 1-12 below each photo and
explain the manner by which information is being acquired, stored, retrieve and utilize
Assignment 1 Module 2

Instructions: Form groups (members should be on the same Municipality). Based on


the topic, Information Revolution and freedom of Speech, conduct informal interviews
with people of different backgrounds. (people within your barangay or family) and
prepare a video compilation of your interviews. Use the following guide questions in
conducting the informal interviews:
1. Do you think that people should use social media in exercising their
freedom of speech?
2. What should be the limits of freedom of speech in social media?
3. Should we hold people accountable for misuse or abuse of social media
in exercising their freedom of speech? Why or why not?

Common questions

Powered by AI

Social media has a dual impact on human lives, offering both advantages such as connectivity, information dissemination, and freedom of expression, and disadvantages including misinformation spread, privacy concerns, and mental health issues. The effect largely depends on how individuals and society choose to utilize these platforms, with potential for empowering positive social change or exacerbating divisions and misinformation .

Robert Harris outlined several truths about the Information Age: information must be complete; newer is often seen as truer; selection is subjective; media sells what the culture demands; the early word prevails; individuals mirror their information consumption through ideas and knowledge; a high demand for information leads to counterfeiting; controversy surrounds ideas; persistent misinformation perpetuates; media presence shapes stories; the medium influences the message; and the pursuit of truth is ongoing .

In the 1990s, information began to be viewed as a form of currency, profoundly shaping business practices. This perception led to the prioritization of data collection, management, and analysis as essential components of competitive strategy. Companies invest heavily in information technology and data analytics to drive decision-making, enhance customer insights, personalize services, and gain competitive advantages, demonstrating the commodification and critical value of information in business .

The Homebrew Computer Club played a significant role in the personal computer industry by providing a collaborative environment for exchanging ideas and parts, fostering experimentation and innovation. Many members, including the founders of Apple Inc., leveraged their experiences and connections from the group to develop influential technologies, ultimately contributing to the accessibility and commercial success of personal computers .

The Harvard Mark 1 addressed computational challenges by performing complex calculations rapidly, which were previously done manually by human computers. This capability was crucial for military operations, enabling the Allies to efficiently handle vast amounts of data for tasks such as trajectory analysis and cryptography, thereby enhancing their strategic and tactical capacities .

The invention of the printing press democratized access to information, drastically reducing the cost of books and enabling literacy to spread beyond the upper classes, which threatened political and religious authorities who had previously taken pride in being the learned elite. This sudden rise of literacy among the general population posed a challenge to their control over knowledge and education .

The phrase 'the medium selects the message' suggests that the form of communication influences how messages are perceived and interpreted. In the modern media landscape, this highlights how different platforms shape public perception and narrative framing. For instance, social media prioritizes quick, digestible content, affecting depth and engagement with complex issues, thereby influencing societal discourse and understanding .

During World War II, computers, which were initially human calculators, evolved into electromechanical machines used for military purposes, such as the Harvard Mark 1, which performed calculations rapidly. Post-war, computers transitioned from military applications to the broader civilian use with innovations leading to the personal computer revolution, democratizing access to computing technology and catalyzing the Information Age .

Bioinformatics represents the intersection of technology and biology through the use of computational tools to manage and analyze biological data. This field exemplifies the Information Age as it leverages information technology to process genomic data for applications like the Human Genome Project, pharmacogenomics, and personalized medicine, demonstrating how advancements in data processing can drive scientific discoveries and innovations in healthcare .

Alan Turing's introduction of the theoretical Turing machine laid the foundation for modern computer science by demonstrating how a machine could compute any problem given a set of instructions. This concept was crucial in the development of what we now call computers, as it demonstrated the possibility of a universal machine capable of performing any task that could be described by an algorithm, thus pioneering the field of computational theory and computer architecture .

Chapter 1 module 2: Information Age This section traces the development of the information age and discusses its impa
currency of the business world. At present, information turned out to be a commodity, an over developed product, mass produce
printing press, the printing press made the mass production of books possible which made books accessible not only in the upp
In the 1970s, the generation who witnessed the dawn of the computer age was prescribed as the generation wit
Assignment 1 Module 2 Instructions: Form groups (members should be on the same Municipality). Based on the topic, Information

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