SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

The
Information
Age
Submitted by: Submitted to:
Group 8: Enp Sherwin Valeroso
John Aldrin Burlaza
Marinelle Metrillo
Mhery Jhoy Permejo

Section:
1 Gov 2

1
 Modern Society, that is the society we have now. Technology became
as high-tech and advanced. In line with this, information can be transferred
and shared quickly. The evolution of information age, the advantages and
disadvantages of computer, how to check the reliability of sources and some
examples of this will be tackle in this lesson.

Information is knowledge communicated or obtained concerning a

specific fact or circumstances (Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged
Dictionary). Wherein it is the idea that we gained from other people. It also
refers to the idea that was shared through communication. The main reason
why we talk or communicate to other people is to gain information. Without
information we are nothing. For example, we cannot operate equipment and
machine without information or the manual. Another example during
calamities we will not survive without having any information about that. We
will not know the precautionary measure without sharing of information from
one another that's why information is important to us. Information is natural
in human's nature.

Information age is defined as period starting in the last quarter of

the 20th century when information became effortlessly accessible through
publications and through the management of computers and computer
networks (Vocabulary.com, n.d.). It means that information age started year
1901 wherein the access of information was easy and quickly since different
technology was invented which makes our life easier than before. It also
called as Digital Age or New Media Age because computers were
associated to it.

According to James R. Messenger, proposed the Theory of Information

Age in 1982, that information age is a true new age based upon the
interconnection of computers via telecommunications, the information was
easily disseminated even on the actual time it was needed or either in a
specific time. It was founded as very useful and convenient but then it also
makes a human dependent on it.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 2

HISTORY

The timeline below shows the history and emergence or the

development of the information age (United States American History, n.d.).

YEAR EVENT
3000 Sumerian writing system used
BC pictographs to represent words

2900 Beginnings of Egyptian

BC hieroglyphic writing

1300 Tortoise shell and oracle bone

BC writing were used

500 BC Papyrus roll was used

220 BC Chinese small seal writing was

developed

100 AD Book (parchment codex)

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 3

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 (largest
Library in the world)
 Invention of the carbon arc
lamp
1824 Research on persistence of vision
published
Peter Roget- proposed the
persistence of vision

1830s  First viable design for a

digital computer
 Augusta Lady Byron writes
the world’s first computer
program
The first computer program is
called Bernoulli Numbers
1837 Invention of the telegraph in
Great Britain and the United
States
Samuel Morse- inventor of
telegraph

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 4

1861 Motion pictures were projected
onto a screen

1876 Dewey Decimal System were

introduced

1877 Eadweard Muybridge

demonstrated high-speed
photography

1899 First magnetic recordings were

released

1902 Motion pictures 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

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 5

1940s Beginnings of information
science as discipline

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

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 6

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

Mid Artificial intelligence was

1980s 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

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 7

January RSA (encryption and network
1997 security software) Internet
security code cracked for a 48-
bit number

As we humans evolved, information also does. Information

disseminate so fast that we can no longer keep it to ourselves because of
that we share and managed them in different ways. Due to the abundance of
the information, it was difficult to collect and manage them starting the year
1960s to 1970s. Richard Wurman called the phenomenon as “Information
Anxiety” during the 1980s. Year 1990s, it became an important tool in the
business world because it provides the development of each business.
Though, many authors contrasting ideas about the evolution of the
information age, information is an essential tool for our everyday living,
without information we will not be able to gain new knowledge that will helps
us to improve our way of living.

Robert Harris detailed some facts about information age on his article
“Truths of the Information Age” (n.d.) which are the following:

1. Information must compete. It means that although we have

so much information there is always the one who will be
recognized by the people and will stand out.
2. Newer is equated with truer. If the information was released
recently, people mostly think that is true/valid because it is up to
date which we forget that there is also some information which
are true although they are released in the past.
3. Selection is a viewpoint. We have to look for different sources
for us to come in a best conclusion. It also helps us to avoid
being biased in some information we will be getting.
4. The media sells what the culture buys. It means that we
were able to know and adapt different cultures because of the
media. For example, the K-pop, because of the media we were
able to know how to pronounce their language and now most of
the youths speaks some of Korean words.
5. The early word gets the perm. Once the issue first presented
in one channel, the concepts, terms and attitudes will be the

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 8

 definition of the issue that will end up us comparing the
information when it was presented in the other media channel.
6. You are what you eat and so is your brain. Majority of the
people are believing the information so quickly without knowing
the background of it. So, we should not drove into conclusions
without getting all the ideas and information for us not to be
biased and have a valid information that will be stored in our
minds.
7. Anything in great demand will be counterfeited.
Information that gets trendy is mostly the information that is
being fabricated or edited which leads us to get 'fake news'. We
can only prove that the information is legit or true if the
statement or information is delivered by a reliable person or
he/she is part of the issue that is being on trend. For example,
Julia Barreto was allegedly being linked to Gerald Anderson after
her broke up with Joshua Garcia. It was one of the previous
hottest issue on showbiz that's why there are different versions
of stories about it and we will only know the real story if the
statement will be coming from those three persons involved in
the issue.
8. Ideas are seen as controversial. We all have different
perspective about an idea or information and there are times
that not all people around us have the same idea we might have
think of or some of them might not agree to our ideas that's why
ideas are controversy. An example of this is the battle between a
debate wherein two opposing teams (the anti and pro or the
positive and the negative) are fighting for their stands.
9. Undead information walks ever on. Information still continue
even though it happened years or eras ago. It doesn't die
especially if it is alarming or a special event that has affect in our
history. For example, the issues during Marcos' period, even
though it was years ago it is still being discussed in schools even
today.
10. Media presence creates the story. Media influences
everyone a lot specially children that is why they acted the way
they should not which makes it like new story was created.
11. The medium selects the message. The first issue or
information we watched in televisions is mostly the news that

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 9

 talks about calamities, disaster which is very important for the
people to know because it concerns them.
12. The whole truth is a pursuit. We all know that the news or
information we watched or read in televisions or social media are
already filtered. Some information was deducted or they were
not providing the detailed story about the issue. Which
sometimes lead to the unrevealed truth.

COMPUTER

Computers are among the greatest contribution in the information age

to our society. It provides us an easy access to different information we
needed. Computer is an electronic device that stores and processes data
(information). It runs on a program that contains the exact, step-by-step
directions to solve a problem (UShistory.org, 2017).

TYPES OF COMPUTER

The term “computer” associated to every device that has a

microprocessor in it. It receives an input from the users, then it will be
processed and the results will be presented on a screen.

1. Personal Computer (PC). It can be changed or customized in

settings. You can store or personalize your computer just by changing
its setting.
2. Desktop Computer. Small version of computers. Same with the
personal computer it is located in a particular area whether in the
corner of the house or office or beside some furniture.
3. Laptops. It is more portable than personal and desktop computers.
And since it is portable you can bring it anywhere you go. It is an
essential thing to those office people especially to teachers and
accountants.
4. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). It is defined as full screen
object and touchscreen at the same time. It may be light weight and
more portable than laptops. An example of it are cellphones and
tablets.
5. Server. It refers to a computer that usually provide network services
to other computers. This type of computer usually boasts with

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 10

 powerful processor, tons of memory and large hard drives to support
the other computers.
6. Mainframes. These are huge computers that can fill a room. It
usually used by a large firm that processes a million of transactions
every day. It was replaced as enterprise server. We can also define
this as supercomputer which are single computers system that working
a single system. Example of these are the computers in NASA or
PAGASA.
7. Wearable Computers. They involve materials that are usually
integrated into cellphones, watches and other small objects or places
that also have a common computer application such as databases,
email, multimedia and schedules. Examples are smartphones and
smart watches.

THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Internet originated from Claude E. Shannon, an American

Mathematician who was considered as the “Father of Information Theory”.
He worked at Bell Laboratories and at the age of 32, he published a paper
proposing that information can be quantitatively encoded as a sequence of
ones and zeros that is why computer programming composed of ones and
zeros.

According to Rouse (2014), internet is a worldwide system of

interconnected networks that facilitate data transmission among
innumerable computers. It means that internet is a system that connects
everybody around the world that helps in sharing data with the use of
computers. It was also developed during 1970s by the Department of
defense for them to easily contact their fellow military in case of attacks. In
early days, these was mostly used by scientist to connect or communicate to
other scientist.

The early problem encounter by the internet users was the speed.
Companies like Intel developed a faster microprocessor so that personal
computers would not have a problem in terms of the signal.

Sergey Brin is a computer scientist and internet engineer. He was

known as the 13th richest person in the world. He is also the president of
Alphabet Incorporated which was the parent company of Google. Being

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 11

mathematician and computer science enthusiast was in their bloodline so
after he finished college, he enrolled in Stanford University to attain his
master's degree. But there he met Larry Page whom he built a web page. It
became popular to the Stanford that's why they decided to suspend their
studies and focus on the web page that they made which is the Google.
After the creation of Google, new forms of communication are introduced.
The process of sending and receiving of information became more
convenient and easy unlike before where you need to wait for a long period
of time to receive a message. America Online and CampuServe also started
to create chat rooms for an individual who wanted to make friends online.
'Surfing the net' became the past time activity of most people.

As the internet became popular, many companies operating a business

that are built on a digitized information have become powerful and valuable
in a short period of time. Some people are Bill Gates, the founder of
Microsoft where he developed it year 1975. Another person is Steve Jobs,
the founder of Apple where he founded it year 1984 releasing their first
computer called Apple Macintosh. And lastly Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of
facebook which he founded it year 2004 and until now it is popular because
it helps a lot in terms of communicating to other people particularly abroad
or in other country.

We all know that internet helps us a lot nowadays, easy access on

information and latest news, it also gave entertainment and the for the best
contribution is the easy and quick communication to others. Of course,
having the advantages it also has disadvantages. One of this is it increased
the gap between the higher class and the lower class. Lower class cannot
afford to have internet; as a result, they will still use the old way they know.
Internet allowed the broadcast of pornography. And nowadays, social media
have been use as a tool in committing a crime such as cyberbullying that
until now this case is still increasing. We should not take advantage of the
essential of the information age instead we should use it as a tool to develop
our society and ourselves as well.

APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

One of the best application of computers in science and research is in

the field of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is the application of information
technology to store, organize, and analyze vast amount of biological data

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 12

which is available in the form of sequences and structures of proteins- the
building blocks of organisms and nucleic acids- the information carrier
(Madan, n.d). We humans cannot store so much information that includes
millions of structures, formulas, solutions and the content and context as
well. Computers helps in storing a large amount of different information, it
also helps in organizing the information.

HOW TO CHECK THE RELIABILTY OF WEB SOURCES

Internet has a vast of information that we can get but not all of it was
credible and reliable enough to use or get. Lee College Library (n.d.) provide
a list of guidelines that will help us to identify a reliable source that we can
use in getting the information we needed.

1. Who is the author of the article/site?

To check the reliability of a web source first of all you must
check who's the author of it. You must check his/her background
especially if he/she has expertise in field of topic he/she had chosen.
2. Who published the site?
You will know that a web source is reliable by also checking the
domain name of the website. The domain name should provide
information about itself. Paying attention to the suffixes on the domain
name can also depicts what kind of entity hosts the website. Some
examples of it are .edu for educational, .com for commercial, .mil for
military, .gov for government and .org for non-profit.
3. What is the main purpose of the site? Why did the author write it and
why did the publisher post it?
Determine the purpose of the author whether he/she wants to
persuade, to inform, to ask, to suggest or what to know his/her
intention. Maybe somehow other authors are just having fun in giving
false idea just to make their selves popular. If his/her article is
convincing and provide supporting evidences, then we can consider it
as a reliable source.
4. Who is the intended audience?
Identifying the intended audience will lead us to a reliable
source. Is the site for general audience, is it for professionals, is it for
students, is it for adults, is it for a people from a particular group? This
will help the audience to understand the information provided and

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 13

 avoid being misled. For example, the site is for person in the field of
medicine, if the person will be going to read the text is from the field
of education he/she will not be able to understand because there are
some terms that is intended only for them.
5. What is the quality of information provided on the website?
The website should have provided dates when was the first
published for us to identify if it is updated. The author should also
provide his/her sources because providing sources makes the site
more reliable. We should also consider the link sites of the website,
are they reputable? And lastly is the site being cited by others, it
serves as an evidence that the information is credible and reliable.

After verifying the guidelines, we should always read the content

because it is the best way for us to identify the reliability of the sources
because not all the sites have these complete guidelines and the very
important we should be wise in getting the information we needed.

EXAMPLES OF USEFUL AND RELIABLE WEB SOURCES

1. AFA e-Newsletter (Alzheimer’s Foundation of America newsletter)

2. American Memory

3. Bartleby.com Great books Online

4. Chronicling America

5. Cyber Bullying

6. Drug information websites: National Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus,

Drugs.com, PDRhealth

7. Global Gateway: World Culture & Resources

8. Google Books

9. Googlescholar.com

10. History sites with primary sources: AMDOCS, Avalon Project, Internet
Modern History Sourcebook, Teacher Oz’s Kingdom of History

11. Illinois Digital Archives

12. Internet Archive

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 14

 13. Internet Archive for CARLI digitized resources

14. Internet Public Library

15. ipl2

16. Librarians’ Internet Index

17. Making of America

18. Maps

19. NationMaster

20. Nursing Sites: AHQR, National Guidelines Clearinghouse, PubMed

21. Project Guternburg

22. Shmoop

23. StateMaster

24. Virtual Reference

REFERENCES:

BOOK

Serafica, et al. (2018). Science, Technology, and Society (1 st ed.). Quezon

City, Manila: Rex Book Store

WEBSITES

Arc lamp. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_lamp

Bellis, M. (2019). Biography of Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft. Retrieved

from https://www.thoughtco.com/bill-gates-biography-and-history
-1991861

Billington, J. (n.d.). Library of Congress. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Congress

Cellania, M. (2015). Ada Lovelace: The First Computer Programmer.

Retrieved from http://mentalfloss.com/article/53131/ada-lovelace-first-
computer-programmer

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 15

Higgins, C. (2012). Building Babbage's Computer from the 1830s. Retrieved
from http://mentalfloss.com/article/31304/building-babbages-
computer-1830s

History of Facebook. (n.d). Retrieved from

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook

Levy, S. (2019). Steve Jobs. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Steve-Jobs

Morse Code & the Telegraph. (2019). Retrieved from

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph

Persistence of Vision. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.mediacollege.com/glossary/p/persistence-of-vision.html

Sergey Brin. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIETY: The Information Age 16