FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev.

0 10-July-2020

Study Guide in GE 6: Science, Technology, and Society Module No. 10

STUDY GUIDE FOR MODULE NO. 10

THE INFORMATION AGE

MODULE OVERVIEW

The Information Age is now upon us. The pace at which technology is evolving is ever increasing –
and people are eager to embrace it. Through the use of computers, cell phones, pagers, calculators, video
game consoles and many other technologically advanced products, communication has changed dramatically.
The information age is changing peoples every day activities and making tedious tasks run more efficiently.
Personal use and business-related use of computers and technology are constantly increasing. Although
there are many positive aspects of the Information Age, there are also many negatives, such as how the
Internet is unregulated. Also, there's a very large legal issue over privacy, as well as many ethical issues
computer-users face daily. Many believe that this era, as developed as it currently is, will continue to progress
and evolve over the years to come.

MODULE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this Module, you should be able to:

1. Link learned concepts to the development of the information age and its impact on society
2. Illustrate how the social media and the information age have impacted our lives

DEFINITION OF INFORMATION AGE

Information age is the modern time in which information has become a commodity that is transmitted
freely, easily and quickly by using personal computer networks. This period is also called the Computer Age,
the Digital Age and the New Media Age. It is the period that started in the last quarter of the 20th century.

According to James R. Messenger who proposed the theory of Information age in 1982, “the
Information age is true age based upon the interconnection of computers via telecommunications, with these
information systems operating on both a real time and as needed basis.

HISTORY OF INFORMATION AGE

As man evolved, information and its dissemination has also progressed in many ways.
The table below traces the history and emergence of the Information Age (United States American
History, n.d)

Table 1: Timeline of the Information Age

Year Event
3000 BC Sumerian writing system used pictographs to represent words
2900 BC Beginning of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing
1300 BC Tortoise shell and oracle bone writing were used
500 BC Papyrus roll was used
220 BC Chinese small seal writing was developed
100 AD Book (parchment codex)
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
Invention of the carbo arc lamp
1824 Research on persistence of vision published
1830’s First viable design for a digital computer
Augusta Lady Byron writes the world’s first computer program
1837 Invention of the telegraph in Great Britain and the United States

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1861 Motion pictures were projected onto a screen

1876 Dewey Decimal system was introduced
1877 Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated high-speed photography
1899 First magnetic recording were released
1902 Motion picture 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
1940s Beginning of information science as a 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 Congress developed LC MARC (machine readable code)
1969 UNIX operating system was developed, which could handle multitasking
1971 Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip
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 1980s Artificial Intelligence was separated from information science
1987 Hypercard was developed by Bill Atkinson recipe box methaphor
1991 Four hundred fifty complete works of literature on one CD ROM was released
January 1997 RSA (encryption and network security software) Internet security code cracked for a 48-bit
number

A major defining event during the early Information Age is the invention of the Internet. Originating
from communication networks used by military and academic circles such as the ARPANET, this network was
expanded to worldwide coverage over the following years, culminating in the creation of the first web browser,
WorldWideWeb, in 1990. The Internet soon become a revolutionary bridge that connects the entire world
together, as companies begun to utilize the Internet to improve their commercial efficiency, and people
sharing their thoughts through mediums such as electronic mails (e-mails), digital forums and social networks,
which gives the era its name due to the massive, ever-growing volume of information distributed digitally
around the world. The internet itself considered to be the decisive technology of the information Age (Castells,
2014).

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SOCIETY

The impacts of the INFORMATION AGE can be felt in virtually every area of people’s lives. These
changes have the potential to increasingly influence how people communicate, live, work or even spend time
for leisure now and even in the future.
As world population grows, so does the number of Internet users across the globe.
Thanks to the internet, each person with marginal views can see that he’s not alone. And when these
people find one another via social media, they can do things — create memes, publications and entire online
worlds that bolster their worldview, and then break into the mainstream.
Without social media, social, ethical, environmental and political ills would have minimal visibility.
Increased visibility of issues has shifted the balance of power from the hands of a few to the masses.
While social media activism brings an increased awareness about societal issues, questions remain as
to whether this awareness is translating into real change.

The Challenges of Social Media

Social media has been blamed for promoting social ills such as:

Cyberbullying:

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Teenagers have a need to fit in, to be popular and to outdo others. This process was challenging long
before the advent of social media. Add Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram into the mix and you
suddenly have teenagers being subjected feeling pressure to grow up too fast in an online world.

Michael Hamm, a researcher from the University of Alberta conducted a study that showed the effects
of social media on bullying. 23% of teens report being targeted and 15 percent said they’d bullied someone on
social media. Teenagers can misuse social media platforms to spread rumors, share videos aimed at
destroying reputations and to blackmail others.

Lack of Privacy:
Stalking, identity theft, personal attacks, and misuse of information are some of the threats faced by the
users of social media. Most of the time, the users themselves are to blame as they end up sharing content
that should not be in the public eye. The confusion arises from a lack of understanding of how the private and
public elements of an online profile actually work.
Unfortunately, by the time private content is deleted, it’s usually too late and can cause problems in
people’s personal and professional lives.

Fake News
It is popular wisdom that people today suffer information overload. A lot of information available on the
internet that spreading fake news. People spend more and more of time absorbing information without
validating if it is reliable or not.

DATA PRIVACY ACT

Information and communications technology play a vital role in nation-building and development of the
country. In the information age, he who holds information holds power. From macro-economic perspective,
the free flow of information is concededly vital to the growth of any nation, and key to the success of any
business. With the power that follows information. Hence, it is in the interest of the State to govern the
parameters by which such power will be held, while at the same time ensuring the free flow of information to
promote innovation and growth.

From the perspective of citizens and individuals, the State also protects their fundamental human rights
to privacy of communication. And with the exponentially increasing availability of ways and means to access
personal data and information, it becomes the duty of the State to guard against transgressions of the
individual’s rights.

Filipinos spend an average of 10 hours and 2 minutes each day online, the highest in the world,
according to recent data. The Philippines also tops social media use for the fourth straight year. Vast amounts
of personal information from the Philippines, including photos of daily activities, are freely circulating the Web.

What has the country done to ensure privacy and data protection?

In 2012, the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 10173 or the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (DPA) “to
protect the fundamental human right to privacy of communication while ensuring free flow of information to
promote innovation and growth [and] the [State’s] inherent obligation to ensure that personal information in
information and communications systems in government and in the private sector are secured and protected”.

The DPA and its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) apply to all acts done or practices engaged
in and outside of the Philippines if:
 If the person, either an individual or an institution, involved in the processing of personal data is
located in the Philippines;
 The act or practice involves personal data of a Philippine citizen or Philippine resident;
 The processing of personal data is done in the Philippines; or
 The act, practice or processing of personal data is done by an entity with links to the Philippines,
subject to international law and comity.

“Personal data” refers to all types of personal information.

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“Processing” is any operation/s performed upon personal data. These operations include, but are not
limited to the collection, recording, organization, storage, updating or modification, retrieval, consultation, use,
consolidation, blocking, erasure, or destruction of data.

While technology has certainly lifted many humans out of poverty and enriched our lives in many ways,
it has also made the world increasingly complex and difficult to navigate. The rapid disruption of many
established industries has meant that even the most intelligent and conscientious individuals have had to
struggle to stay relevant in the modern globalized economy—while others, inundated with information to make
sense of, can’t figure out how to make all the right decisions the first time, and must spend years broke,
jobless, underemployed, or burnt out. We are not weaker or stupider than our ancestors, but the world is more
challenging than ever before and we need to go through more trial and error than they did in order to secure a
comfortable existence. Continued technological development will increase material abundance even more, but
technology alone cannot solve the problem of figuring out whom to distribute resources to and getting
everyone on board with how resources are distributed.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2

Position Paper

Watch the documentary The Internet Revolution and Digital Future Technology
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xZFZO7USA). After watching the clip, write a 300 – 500 word paper
discussing the impact of information revolution to you.

Your work will be assessed using the following criteria:

4 3 2 1
Depth of Content Demonstrates a Demonstrates a Demonstrates a Lacks
comprehensive comprehensive basic understanding of
understanding of understanding of understanding of the subject for
the subject for the subject for the subject for reflection.
reflection and work reflection. reflection.
can be used as an
example for others.
Originality and Work is insightful Work is insightful Work shows some Work is not
Insight and shows a high and shows insight and some original.
degree of imagination. degree of
imagination. imagination.
Style and Clarity Ideas are clearly Ideas are clearly Ideas show some Ideas are not
articulated and well articulated and well degree of clarity communicated
developed. developed. but are not well clearly nor are they
developed. well developed.
Organization and Writing is well- Writing is well- Writing has some Writing is
Grammar organized with no organized with few degree of unorganized and
spelling and spelling and organization with contains many
grammatical errors. grammatical errors. some spelling and spelling and
grammatical errors. grammatical errors.
Timeliness Completed work Completed work Completed work Completed work
was passed earlier was passed on the was passed the was passed more
than the deadline deadline given. day after the than a day after the
given. deadline given. deadline given.

SUMMARY

The following learning points summarize what you have learned in this section:
 The Information Age (sometimes called the Digital Age and the New Media Age) is a period starting in
the last quarter of the 20th century when information became effortlessly accessible through
publications and through management of information by computers and computer networks.
According to James R. Messenger, who proposed the Theory of Information Age in 1982, this

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Study Guide in GE 6: Science, Technology, and Society Module No. 10

interconnection operates on real-time and as-needed basis, and that they are driven by convenience
and user-friendliness.
 However, the growth of information transmission, recording, and management grew at a fast rate,
causing great difficulty. It also created a technological divide between those who can afford internet
services and those who cannot, increasing the gap between socioeconomic classes. Other problems
that is caused by these developments include compromise on reliability, which gives rise to
misinformation; reinforcement of biases and beliefs of like-minded people belonging to social media;
control of public opinion and harassment; online predation, identity theft, scamming, and other new
crimes; pornography; and cyberbullying.

REFERENCES

 Quinto, Edward Jay M. and Nieva, Aileen D. (2019). Science, Technology, and Society. pp 132-146.
Quezon City: C&E Publishing.
 Newest Documentaries (2018, January 21). The Internet Revolution and Digital Future Technology
[Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xZFZO7USA

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