Math, Science and Technology

Living in the IT Era

by Pasquito, LN Page |1

Chapter 2
The Information Era
and the Human Society

Introduction

The Information Era is a period in human history beginning in

the last quarter of the 20th century when information became
easily accessible through publications and through the
manipulation of information by computers and computer
networks. It is characterized by the shift from traditional
industry to computerization where information become a tool
for the manufacturing of goods and services. The start of the
Information Era is associated with the Digital Revolution. This
Era is also known as the Information Age, Computer Age,
Digital Age, or New Media Age. According to historians, the
beginning of Information Era to the work of the American
mathematician Claude E. Shannon, a researcher at Nokia Bell Laboratories, New Jersey. Shannon
published a landmark paper proposing that information from telephone signals to radio waves and
to television, can be quantitatively encoded as a series of ones and zeroes that can be transmitted
without error. Because of his theory, he is known today as the Father of Information Theory.

The Information Technology (IT)

Information technology (IT) is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve, transmit, and
manipulate information. The term information technology first appeared in a 1958 article
published in the Harvard Business Review authored by Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler
where they commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name.
We shall call it information technology (IT)." The term is commonly used as a synonym for
computers and computer networks. Information technology has been around for a long, long time.
Basically, as long as people have been around, information technology has been around because
there were always ways of communicating through technology available at that point in time.

Four Distinct Ages of Information Technology Development

There are four (4) main ages that divide up the history of information technology:
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1. Pre-mechanical Age (3000 BC – 1450 AD).

The pre-mechanical age is the earliest age
of information technology when humans
first started communicating by using
language or by drawing picture called as
petroglyphs which were usually carved in
rock and later developed the Phoenician
alphabet. They began writing in wet clay,
but later paper was created out of papyrus
plant. Then the first books and libraries
were developed such as Egyptian scrolls
which were popular ways of saving
information. The Romans were the first to
bind paper together into a book-like form which they call codex. They also devised the first
numbering systems when the first 1-9 system was created by people from India and 775 years
later the number 0 was invented. People then begin to process numbers and the first
calculator, the abacus or Suan Pan was invented by China. The abacus was considered first
information processor machine.
2. Mechanical Age (1450–1840). This age is
characterized by the development of
technologies like the slide rule (an analog
computer used for multiplying and dividing), the
invention of Pascaline computer by Blaise Pascal,
and the Difference Engine developed by Charles
Babbage which tabulated polynomial equations
using the method of finite differences. There
were lots of different machines created during
this era and sizes of the machines invented in this time are big.
3. Electromechanical Age (1840–1940). This age is the start of telecommunication technology
which is characterized by the invention of telegraph and the
development of Morse code by Samuel Morse in 1835, the
invention of telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 and
the first radio developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894. These
technologies were very useful in the advances of the field of
information technology. Also in this age, the first large-scale
automatic digital computer called Mark 1 was created in 1940 by
Harvard University. This computer was 8ft high, 50ft long, 2ft
wide, and weighed 5 tons.
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4. Electronic Age (1940–present). The electronic age is what we currently live in. This age is
characterized by the development of the ENIAC, the first high-speed, digital computer which
can be reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems supposedly designed for the
U.S. Army for artillery firing tables. Computer developed during this age can be classified into
four generations:
a. First Generation Computers. These computers use vacuum tubes and punch cards like
the ENIAC and Mark 1. Rotating magnetic drums were used for internal storage.
b. Second Generation Computers. These computers replaced vacuum tubes with
transistors, punch cards were replaced with magnetic tape, and rotating magnetic
drums were replaced by magnetic cores for internal storage. Also during this time
high-level programming languages were created such as FORTRAN and COBOL.
c. Third Generation Computers. These computers replaced transistors with integrated
circuits, magnetic tape was used throughout all computers, and magnetic core turned
into metal oxide semiconductors. An actual operating system showed up around this
time along with the advanced programming language BASIC.
d. Fourth Generation Computers. This is the latest generation of computers which uses
CPUs (central processing units) that has memory,
logic, and control circuits all on a single chip.
Also, the first personal computer called Apple II
was developed and the graphical user interface
(GUI).
e. Fifth Generation Computers. These computers
are still in development today. There are some
applications that are proposed such as voice
recognition, one that could respond to natural
language, a computer capable of learning and
self-organization and a computer that have the
power of human intelligence.

Innovations, Advances and Inventions of the Information Era

The following were the innovations, advances and inventions under the information Era:

1. Introduction of New Types of Materials. The Information Era introduced the following
new types of materials:
a. Memory Metals. These are metals which can assume different shapes and forms
when applied with thermal or electrical energy.
b. Amorphous Glass-like Metals. These are metals which are used to enhance
construction techniques for specially vehicles. Example is plasteel which is a
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combination of fiberglass and steel patented by automobile manufacturer Gurgel

and first used in 1973.
c. Carbon Nanotubes. These are specialized materials in nano scale which increases
the strength of structures and vehicles.
d. Composite Alloy. This alloy allowed the development of practical cold (~100K)
superconductor wires and materials, greatly improving electrical grid efficiencies
and computing node capabilities.
2. Renewable Energy Sources. The Information Era has introduced improved efficiencies of
the following:
a. Chemical batteries, fuel cells, solar arrays, and wind turbines. This allowed a
transition away from internal combustion and polluting hydrocarbon fuels. Solar
cell efficiencies increased to 50% and the first combined absorption and storage
devices were developed.
b. An intelligent energy grid. This grid has the capacity to store power and deliver
clean fuel to vehicles, decreased pollution and energy costs.
3. Transportation. The Information Era has
introduced many innovations in transportation
such as:
a. Land transportation. The Era has
produced electric and hydrogen-based
vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles,
improved turbines and fuel cell vehicles which are cost effective.
b. Sea transportation. Ships are powered by fuel sources ranging from hydrocarbon
turbines to improved nuclear power plants.
c. Air Transportation. This uses improved hulls
and engines which are more efficient supersonic
travel for transcontinental routes and powered
flight at high supersonic and suborbital
velocities.
d. Space Transportation. This uses light reusable
launch vehicles with air breathing making space
stations and outposts became viable.
4. Information. The following were the advances of information under the Information Era:
a. Development of global information networks,
allowing data, voice, and video.
b. Replacement of large-scale radio wave
broadcasting was supplanted with localized, fiber
optic, laser or specialized GPS data transmission.
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c. Robotic devices capable of variety simple household and industrial duties.

d. Development of nervous system interfaces which are
used for intelligent prosthetics, artificial eyes and ears,
and implantable audio and visual systems.
5. Biology. Information technology allowed for the following:
a. Human Genome Project. This is an international
research project with the goal to determine the DNA
sequence of the entire human genome. Using
researcher friendly sequence analysis tools and
computer
software, it
published the first
draft of the human
genome in the
journal Nature in
February 2001.
b. Genetic therapy.
Using computer
tools, gene therapy
greatly improved non-
surgical medical techniques,
allowing cures for many
cancers and genetic
conditions. Gene therapy
refers to the transplantation
of normal genes into cells in
place of missing or defective
ones in order to correct
genetic disorders.
c. Biotechnology. This
refers to the
exploitation of biological
processes for industrial
and other purposes,
especially the genetic
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manipulation of microorganisms for the production of antibiotics, hormones, and

many others.
d. Cloning. Cloning of mammalian organisms become possible during the Information
Era, though major modifications to genomes were not possible and side-effects
remained common.
e. Improvement of Micro
and nano surgical
techniques. Using
computers and other
medical imaging
apparatuses, surgical
techniques has greatly
improved specifically on
the rate of success which
were never done before.
f. Implanted sensors.
Implanted sensors
alerted medical
authorities of aberrant conditions, greatly
reducing preventable deaths from heart disease,
stroke and even accidents.
g. Improved cryogenic hibernation techniques.
This is to reduce metabolism to barely two
percent normal for medical and space travel
applications.
6. Data Management. Information technology could gather
and display obscure data to develop detailed profiles of individuals. Locator services also
provided tracking information to controlling organizations.
7. Employment. Information technology has created employment in data-related fields,
including analysis and entertainment, robotic units which supplanted many simple service
job functions.
8. Population Control. The increasing life expectancy of an Information Age society was often
coupled with decreasing fertility, leading to eventual population size stability but to an
aged-imbalanced economy.

Impact of IT to the Human Society

The Information Era brought dramatic technological changes in the 1990s. From the beginning of
the decade until the end, new forms of entertainment, commerce, research, work, and
communication became commonplace in the United States. The driving force behind much of this
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change was an innovation popularly known as the Internet. In the Information Era, humans have
created a society with the following characteristics:

1. Information Technology has Expanded

our Library. It was Fremont Rider,
an American writer, inventor, and
librarian, who predicted that library,
will double in capacity every sixteen
(16) years and that sufficient space will
become a problem. He proposed that
books should be replaced with analog
microform. With the advent of digital
technologies available space for the
rapidity of information did not become
a problem because the proliferation of
the smaller and less expensive personal
computers resulted in a sudden access to and ability to share and store information.
2. Information Technology has Improved the World Economy. The computers, computerized
machinery, fiber optics, communication satellites, Internet, and other tools had become a
significant part of the economy. Microcomputers were developed and because of this
many businesses and industries proliferated.
3. Information Technology Makes Job Faster and Easier. The Information Age has created a
situation in which workers perform easily automated tasks and where workers are being
replaced by computers that can do their jobs faster and more effectively.
4. Information Technology Creates Globalization of Workforce. Jobs traditionally associated
with the middle class such as assembly line workers, foremen and supervisors are now able
to compete successfully in the world market and receive high wages. The internet makes it
possible for workers in developing countries to compete directly with their counterparts in
other nations. For example, workers in the past were considered are less paid in
comparison to the workers in other countries. But with the advent of the Information Age,
workers are forced to compete in a global job market.
5. Information Technology Creates More Jobs. The automation and computerization have
resulted in higher productivity. Although it initially appeared that job loss in the industrial
sector might be partially offset by the rapid growth of jobs in the IT sector, data has shown
that overall, technology creates more jobs than it destroys even in the short run.
6. Information Technology Has Created a Cashless Society. IT has created digital currency or
digital cash or e-money not in physical state such as banknotes and coins. This currency
allows for instantaneous transactions and borderless transfer-of-ownership. Digital cash is
a money balance recorded electronically on a stored-value card or other device which can
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be used to buy physical goods and services or used for on-line game or social network. It is
an asset represented in digital form and having some monetary characteristics
denominated to a sovereign currency and issued by the issuer responsible to redeem
digital money for cash. In that case, digital currency represents electronic money (e-
money). Origins of digital currencies date back to the 1990s Dot-com bubble. One of the
first was E-gold, founded in 1996 and backed by gold. Another known digital currency
service was Liberty Reserve, founded in 2006 which it let users convert dollars or euros to
Liberty Reserve Dollars or Euros, and exchange them freely with one another at a 1% fee.
Another example of digital currency is the Q coins or QQ coins used as a type of
commodity-based digital currency on Tencent QQ's messaging platform in early 2005. IT
was so effective in China that they were said to have had a destabilizing effect on the
Chinese Yuan currency due to speculation. Then, in 1983, a research paper by David
Chaum introduced the idea of digital cash and founded DigiCash in 1990, an electronic cash
company, in Amsterdam to commercialize the ideas in his research. The company became
bankrupt in 1998. In 1999, Chaum left the company. In 1997, Coca-Cola offered buying
from vending machines using mobile payments. After that PayPal emerged in 1998. Other
system such as e-gold followed in 2005. And in 2008, bitcoin was introduced, which
marked the start of Digital currencies. Examples of digital currency or digital cash include
the following:
a. Virtual currency. A virtual currency is a type of unregulated, digital money, issued
and controlled by its developers. It is used and accepted among the members of a
specific virtual community. This type of digital cash is not legal tender because it is
not issued by a central bank, credit institution or e-money institution.
b. Cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency is a type of digital token that relies on
cryptography for chaining together digital signatures of token transfers, peer-to-
peer networking and decentralization. Cryptography is an act of storing and
transmitting data in a particular form (scrambling ordinary into ciphertext then
back again) so that only those for whom it is intended can read and process it. This
allows electronic money systems to be decentralized. These systems include:
1. Bitcoin. The bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency, a peer-to-peer electronic
monetary system based on cryptography. The following are its subclass:
a. Bitcoin Cash. This is a 2017 fork of bitcoin larger than bitcoin and
has a high degree of difficulty adjustment algorithm.
b. Litecoin. This is a modified bitcoin intended to improve its alleged
inefficiencies. It has faster block times and different mining
algorithm compared to bitcoin.
c. Dash Coin. This is originally based on the bitcoin protocol and
offers the option of instant and private transactions.
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2. Ethereum. This is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed

computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality.
3. Ripple money. This is a monetary system based on trust networks.
4. Other digital currencies. This includes NEM, NEO, IOTA, Monero, Zcash,
Dogecoin, Nxt, and Zcoin
c. Digital Base Money. This currency is like banknotes in circulation, but in contrast
to banknotes, it is digital.
d. Network Money. This value of this money is allowed to be transferred on
computer networks, particularly the Internet and can be claimed on a private bank
or other financial institution such as bank deposits.
e. Mobile digital wallet. This is a digital wallet which uses contactless payment and
give the payee more confidence in not letting go of their electronic wallet during
the transaction. Example is payment system through SMS.
7. The Information Era has produced a society that produces and use massively on
computer, digital cellular phone, and the Internet. Today, even kindergarten pupils uses
computers, laptops and cellphones for many reason from entertainment to education.
These devices are usually connected to the internet. Because the human society today
heavily relies on the internet, it is very inconvenient living without these devices and the
internet.
8. The Information Era has converted analog technology into a digital format. For example,
During the 1980s the digital format of optical compact discs gradually replaced analog
formats, such as vinyl records and cassette tapes, as the popular medium of choice.
9. The Information Era has created a situation where digital copies can be copied or
amplified with no loss of information. This gives us the ability to easily move the digital
information between media, and to access or distribute it remotely.

The Digital Revolution Timeline

The following is the timeline of development of Information Technology during the Digital
Revolution.

1947–1969  Transistor was invented, leading the way to more advanced digital computers
for the military, governments and other organizations.
1969- 1971  Intel developed the Intel 4004, an early microprocessor that laid the
foundations for the microcomputer revolution that began in the 1970s.
 The public was first introduced to the concepts of the Internet when a
message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969. The ARPANET led to the
development of protocols for internetworking.
1970s  The home computer was introduced, time-sharing computers, the video
game console, the first coin-op video games, and the golden age of arcade
video games began with Space Invaders.
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 At this period there was a switch from analog to digital record keeping which
became the new standard in business. The main job of the clerk in the
company was to convert analog data such as customer records into digital
data.
1980s  The computers were first used in schools, homes, business, and industry.
 Automated teller machines (ATM), industrial robots, digital films and
television, electronic music, bulletin board systems, and video games were
used in industries.
 The Motorola DynaTac, the first mobile phone, was created by Motorola in
1983.
 The first true digital camera was created in 1988, and the first were marketed
in December 1989 in Japan and in 1990 in the United States.
 Digital ink was also invented in the late 1980s. It was first used in 1989's The
Little Mermaid, the 1990's The Rescuers Down Under and 2004's Home On
The Range.
 Tim Berners-Lee, English engineer and computer scientist, invented the
World Wide Web (www) in 1989.
1990s  The first public digital HDTV was used to broadcast the 1990 World Cup and
was played in ten (10) theaters in Spain and Italy.
 The digital cell phones were sold commercially when the 2G network opened
in Finland.
 In 1991, the World Wide Web (www) became publicly accessible, which had
been available only to government and universities.
 In 1993, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina introduced Mosaic, the first web
browser capable of displaying inline images and later become the basis for
later browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.
 In 1996, the Internet expanded quickly and many businesses use websites to
promote advertisements.
 By 1999, almost every country had a connection with the internet.

2000s  Cell phones became a trend. This made movie theaters operators show ads
telling people to silence their phones.
 Text messaging became a cultural phenomenon.
 In 2005, the population of the Internet reached 1 billion, and 3 billion people
worldwide used cell phones by the end of the decade.
 In 2009, the HDTV became the standard television broadcasting format in
many countries.
2010s  BY 2010, Cloud computing was introduced by NASA's OpenNebula and
Amazon. Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the
Internet or “cloud”.
 By 2012, over 2 billion people used the Internet.
 By 2015, tablet computers and smartphones were used instead of personal
computers.
 In 2016, half of the world's population is connected.
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Effects of Digital Revolution

The following are the effects of digital revolution:

A. Positive Effect

1. Globalization. Because of the World Wide Web (WWW),

globalization becomes possible. Globalization is increased
interconnectedness among the people of the world making their
work, businesses or organizations operates on an international
scale due to free transfer of capital, goods, and services across
national frontiers using the internet. Using the internet, people
form all over the world can create their own digital groups or
communities of like-minded individuals.
2. Access of Market. The digital revolution gives small regional
companies an access to much larger markets through e-
commerce. E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying
and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds
or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet.
3. Increased Productivity and Business Performance. Digital technologies have significantly
increased the productivity and performance of businesses. It boosts productivity because
team members can discuss, plan and execute workflows, and employees can communicate
about projects. Technology can also minimize meetings as meetings drains so much time
in business and therefore save plenty of time and money.
4. Information sharing. The Internet opened
whole new avenues for communication and
information sharing. The ability to easily and
rapidly share information on a global scale
brought with it a whole new level of freedom
of speech. Individuals and organizations were
suddenly given the ability to publish on any
topic, to a global audience, at a negligible cost.

B. Negative Effects

1. Information overload. This refers to the difficulty of

making an effective decision because of too much
information about that issue. This occurs when the
amount of input of information exceeds processing
capacity of a person.
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2. Internet predators. This refers to individuals who commit child sexual abuse through the
Internet. Online predators target their victims on websites, chat rooms, email and texting.
Their techniques may vary from giving illicit media such as photography, audio, or video to
children below the age of consent, engaging a minor in sexually-explicit chat and arranging
to meet with a minor with the intent of performing an illegal, unlawful, and unethical
sexual act. Here are the different types of online predators:
a. The Gatherer. They gather media that contains photography or video pornography
as a hobby and can become dangerous and make more risks as the obsession
grows.
b. The Producer. They distributes child pornography to pedophiles by using children
as “actors” for their pornographic movies.
c. The Talker. They enter chat rooms and take their time earning the child’s trust to
engage in sexual talk and sometimes use web cams. This is the most common type
of online predators that parents fear.
d. The Voyager. They build a relationship with their victim and seek out to meet in
person. Oftentimes, blackmail is used to keep the relationship going.
3. Forms of social isolation. This is a state of complete or near-complete lack of contact
between an individual and society because of obsession to social media or to a computer
games and activities.
4. Digital Divide. This refers to the gap between
population who have ready access to computers and
the Internet, and those who do not. A digital divide is a
state of economic and social inequality between
population, or countries with regard to access to, use
of, of information technologies.
5. Emergence of fake news. Fake news refers to false information or propaganda published
under the guise of being authentic news spread on the internet or using other media,
usually to influence political views, to condition the mind of the public or just for
amusement purposes. The Internet is said to be hurting journalism more than it is helping
by allowing anyone no matter how amateur and unskilled to become a journalist. This
causes information to be muddier giving to culture of twisted or fake news. Reliability of
data became an issue as information could easily be replicated, but not easily verified.
6. Reduction of company productivity. In some cases, company employees' pervasive use of
portable digital devices and work-related computers for personal use such as email, instant
messaging, and computer games, were often found to reduce those companies'
productivity.
7. Privacy invasion and Freedom of expression issues. Personal computing led to privacy
invasion when predators use keystroke recording devices and spywares. Anybody, given
the large amounts of diverse information in the internet, can track individual personal
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details. The digital revolution helped usher in a new age of mass surveillance, generating a
range of new civil and human rights abuses.
8. Proliferation of pornography and other cybercrimes. Because of information
technologies, pornography becomes being more readily available to minors because
usually almost each child has a cellphone unit. Other cybercrimes such as building bombs,
committing acts of terrorism, and other violent activities also proliferated.
9. Copyright and trademark issues. Copyright and trademark issues also found new life in the
digital revolution. The widespread ability of consumers to produce and distribute exact
reproductions of protected works dramatically changed the intellectual property
landscape, especially in the music, film, and television industries.
10. History Issues. From the perspective of the historian, a large part of human history is
known through physical objects from the past that have been found or preserved,
particularly in written documents. Unlike physical records, digital records are easy to
create but are also easy to delete and modify.

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

The term digital native describes a person that

grows-up in the digital age, rather than
acquiring familiarity with digital systems as an
adult, as a digital immigrant. Both terms were
used as early as 1996 as part of the
Declaration of the Independence of
Cyberspace. They were popularized by
education consultant Marc Prensky in his
2001 article entitled Digital Natives, Digital
Immigrants, in which he relates the contemporary decline in American education to educators'
failure to understand the needs of modern students. His article posited that "the arrival and rapid
dissemination of digital technology in the last decade of the 20th century" had changed the way
students think and process information, making it difficult for them to excel academically using the
outdated teaching methods of the day. In other words, children raised in a digital, media-saturated
world, require a media-rich learning environment to hold their attention, and Prensky dubbed
these children "digital natives".

Marc Prensky defines the term "digital native" and applies it to a new group of students enrolling
in educational establishments referring to the young generation as "native speakers" of the digital
language of computers, videos, video games, social media and other sites on the internet.

Conflicts between Digital native and Digital Immigrants

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Due to the obvious divide set between digital natives and

digital immigrants, sometimes both generations are forced to
meet which commonly results in conflicting ideologies of digital
technology. The everyday regimen of work-life is becoming
more technologically advanced with improved computers in
offices, more complicated machinery in industry etc.

1. With technology moving so fast it is hard for digital

immigrants to keep up. This creates conflicts
among older supervisors and managers with the
increasingly younger workforce.
2. Similarly, parents clash with their children at home over gaming, texting, YouTube,
Facebook and other Internet technology issues.
3. Education is the single largest problem
facing the digital world as our digital
immigrant instructors, who speak an
outdated language (that of the pre-
digital age), are struggling to teach a
population that speaks an entirely new
language. Digital natives have had an
increased exposure to technology, which
has changed the way they interact and
respond to digital devices. In order to meet the unique learning needs of digital
natives, teachers need to move away from traditional teaching methods that are
disconnected with the way students learn today. However, Immigrants suffer
complications in teaching natives how to understand an environment which is "native"
to them and foreign to Immigrants. Teachers not only struggle with proficiency levels
and their abilities to integrate technology into the classroom, but also, display
resistance towards the integration of digital
tools. Since technology can be frustrating
and complicated at times, some teachers
worry about maintaining their level or
professionalism within the classroom.
Teachers worry about appearing
"unprofessional" in front of their students.
Although technology presents challenges in
the classroom, it is still very important for
teachers to understand the unique
affordances these digital tools have for students.
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Gamification as a Solution to Conflict between Digital Native and Immigrants

One preference to this problem is to invent computer games to teach digital natives the lessons
they need to learn, no matter how serious. For example, piloting an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
in the army consists of someone sitting in front of a computer screen issuing commands to the UAV
via a hand-held controller which resembles, in detail, the model of controllers that are used to play
games on an Xbox 360 game console. Gamification as a teaching tool has sparked interest in
education, and these games have special properties that books cannot offer for digital natives. For
instance, gamification provides an interactive environment for students to engage and practice
21st century skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and digital literacy.
There are four (4) reasons why gamification provides a distinct way of learning to promote 21st
century skills.

1. First, games are based on problem solving and not

on one’s ability to memorize content knowledge.
2. Second, gamification promotes creativity in digital
natives where they are encouraged to think like a
designer or modify to redesign games.
3. Third, digital natives are beginning to co-author
their games through the choices they make to
solve problems and face challenges. Therefore, students' thinking is stimulated to promote
metacognition since they have to think about their choices and how they will alter the
course and outcome of the game.
4. Lastly, through online gaming, digital natives are able to collaborate and learn in a more
social environment. Furthermore, online gaming seems to provide an interactive and
engaging environment that promotes the necessary skills digital natives will need to be
successful in their future.

Digital Omnivore

A digital omnivore refers to a person who owns a laptop, a

smartphone, and a tablet and uses them all to
indiscriminately access the World Wide Web. Digital
omnivores have a voracious appetite to stream movies,
play games or view and stream online TV. Others use
smartphone only for internet activities, while the tablet is
reserved for entertainment, and real work happens on the
laptop. They shift from one environment to another
relying on internet to make their content available
wherever they may go.
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Name: _____________________________Year and Sec: ____________Date: ______________

The Information Era and the Human Society

Learning Activity No. ____

A. Define the following:

1. Information Technology

2. Digital Revolution

3. Digital Native

4. Digital Immigrants

5. Digital Omnivore

B. Differentiate the following generation of computers.

Generation of Weight Size (small Operating Other notable

Computers (heavy or or big) System Used characteristics
light)
First Generation
Computers

Second Generation
Computers

Third Generation
Computers
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Living in the IT Era
by Pasquito, LN P a g e | 17

C. DIFFERENTIATION. Differentiate the four (4) distinct ages of information technology

development.

Age Key Feature Notable Inventions

1. Pre-mechanical Age

2. Mechanical Age

3. Electromechanical Age

4. Electronic Age

D. COMIC STRIPS. On the space below, draw or paste five (5) comic strips showing conflicts
between digital native (children today) and digital immigrants (parents) that were not
mentioned in the book.