i-Tech College Bago City, Inc
Ramon Gonzaga Compound, 1084 Araneta St. Brgy. Poblacion, Bago City, Negros Occidental
454-2532
Special Topics in Science, Technology, and Society
Information Society
Intended Learning Outcomes: At the end of this module, the students should be able to:
Determine the human and social impacts of the developments in the information
age;
Discuss the evolution of technology from the ancient times up to the present; and
Illustrate how social media have affected their lives.
A. Introduction
The Information Age, also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age,
began around the 1970s and continue to shape society today. It is characterized by the rapid
development and integration of information and communication technologies into various aspects
of daily life. The Internet, a prominent innovation of the Information Age, has revolutionized how
people access information, communication, and conduct business. This era has transformed
technology, science, economies, culture, and even the way people think.
Information
Knowledge Communicated or obtained concerning a specific fact or circumstance.
Facts provided or learned about something or someone
History
• 3000 BC Sumerian Writing System
• 2900 BC Egyptian Hieroglyphic
• 500 BC Papyrus
• 100 AD Codex
• 1455 Printing Press
• 1861 Motion pictures were projected onto a screen
• 1939 regularly scheduled television broadcasting began in US
• 1971 Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip
• 1975 first personal computer was introduced
• 1984 Apple Macintosh computer was introduced
Key figures in the Information Age include Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of World Wide Web,
Steve Jobs, who revolutionized personal computing will Apple products, and Bill Gates, the
founder of Microsoft. These individuals have played pivotal roles in shaping the digital landscape
and driving technological advancements that define the Information Age.
The Information Age represents a transformative period marked by the widespread
adoption of information and communication technologies, changing how people interact, work,
and access information in the modern world.
Information Anxiety
Human cost of information overload
“It is produced by the ever widening gap between what we understand and
what we think we should understand. It is the black hole between date and
knowledge, and what happens when information doesn’t tell us what we
want or need to know.”
B. Activity
Sizing up the Information Age
The following is a sampler from an article by Robert Harris, “Truths of the Information Age”.
EXPLAIN EACH BRIEFLY.
Truths of the Information Age:
1. Information must compete -
2. Newer is equated with 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 -
C. Abstraction
The World Wide Web ( internet )
Internet – worldwide system of interconnected networks that facilitate date
transmission among innumerable computers
TIM BERNERS – LEE invented it as a way of addressing data processing and
information sharing needs among scientists for the European organizations for
nuclear research
Search engines: the Internet’s data hunters
A search engine is a program that acts as a self searching card catalog for the internet, a
directory of internet content.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, directors of a Stanford research project, developed a search
engine that listed results to reflect page popularity, when they determined that the most-popular
result would frequently be the most usable. Google is now the planet’s most popular search engine,
accepting more than 200 million queries daily.
Criteria to evaluate Web resources
1. AUTHORITY: Who is responsible for the website on which the web page resides? What is the
website author’s background?
2. LINK CHECKING: Most search engines allow you to type URL (entry code) of the page you’re
browsing to find out what other sites link to the one you’re examining. This can help you
determine how well thought of a site is.
3. PURPOSE and OBJECTIVITY: Why has this information been posted, and how impartial is it?
4. CONTENT and COVERAGE: How comprehensive is the web site? How accurate is the page
content? Are references or bibliographies posted on the page?
5. CURRENCY: How up-to-date is the information?
6. TYPES OF WEB PAGES: Advocacy, influencing public opinion; business, promoting or selling
products or services; entertainment; providing amusement and enjoyment; informational,
providing such factual information as census data, research reports, or a calendar of events;
and personal, an open category that may feature a hobby or favorite activity.
D. Application
Questions for reflection:
1. Which developments in the information age brought significant changes in the
way you live your life today?
2. How did the transmission of information age evolve from the ancient times up to
the present?
E. Evaluation
1. Social media is a technology which facilitates the sharing of information, ideas,
and other content in different parts of the globe. If social media was deactivated
for a month in the country, what could possibly happen?
2. Social media also poses certain risks especially in the dissemination of false
information. As a student, how will you use social media to ensure that you do
not propagate inaccurate and unreliable information?
Prepared by: Mariane D. Duyo
Instructor
