Topic 8: Information Age

Learning Objectives
At the end of this topic, students will be able to:

 Discuss the history of Information Age

 Determine the human and social impacts of developments in the
Information Age

Activating Prior Learning

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 WX Y Z
S T U V WX 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.