Introduction

The act of transmitting information from one place, person, or group to another is
fundamental to the existence of human survival as well as to the organization. Technological
advancement brought dramatic development in the sharing of information between individuals
throughout history.

Learning Outcomes

• Discuss the history of information age.

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

Abstraction:

Are you fond of listening to music, or watching your favorite TV shows, or learning the latest
up-to-date events? The source that you are using to access the news or information is
considered mass media. Mass media is a technology intended for the transfer of information
and ideas to the general audience. It comprises a wide array of media platforms from television
to radios, newspapers, magazines, computers, internet, social media sites, and so forth.
Its primary function in the society is to provide news and information to the vast majority of
the general public, hence, the period from the last quarter of the 20 th century when
information became effortlessly accessible and widely available through the use of computer
technology known as Information Age. This period is also called Digital Age and the New Media
Age because digital information is the key driver across various sectors. It started from the
invention of personal computer and amplified by the arrival of the Internet. In the last few
decades, information technology has grown exponentially to keep abreast on our fast-changing
environment.

History

1. The Premechnical Age

-It is the earliest age of information technology.
-Between the years 3000 BC and 105 AD
-Papers and Pens
-Books and Libraries
-The first numbering system is also discovered in this age.
-Egyptians and Hindus in India used the numbering system
-The numbering system similar to those we use today is invented between 100 and 200 AD.
-The invention of zero comes much later.
 -The first calculator is also discovered during this age.

3000 BC-Sumerian writing system used pictographs to represent words

The earliest forms of Sumerian writing were pictographs ("picture words") where the sign
resembles the object it represents (grain, hand, etc.), as seen on the tablet below: Pictographs, the
precursor to cuneiform writing. On the early tablets, the signs were written vertically.
The cuneiform was developed by the Sumerians while the hieroglyphics was developed by
ancient Egyptians. The cuneiform is written on clay tablets while hieroglyphics are written on temple
walls. Cuneiform script represent whole syllables while hieroglyphic script represent consonants only.
2900 BC- Beginnings of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing

Hieroglyphs are part of a system of picture writing called hieroglyphics. When picture writing first
began, the pictures represented the actual object they depicted. These were called pictograms.

1300 BC- Tortoiseshell and oracle bone writing were used

At that time, people believed in ghosts and practiced divination on important occasions. They inscribed
divination words on tortoise shells or animal bones, and painted them red to symbolize good luck or
black to symbolize potential disasters. The words were inscribed with knives.

Oracle-bone script (jiaguwen), the earliest known form of systematic Chinese writing, dates from the
fourteenth to eleventh century BCE. The sharp beginning and end of each stroke relate to the script's
origins in carving divination texts on tortoise shells and on the flat bones of certain animals.

500 BC- Papyrus roll was used.

It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge. Papyrus (plural:
papyri or papyruses) can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side
and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book.

220 BC- Chinese small seal writing was developed

xiaozhuan, (Chinese: “small seal”) Wade-Giles romanization hsiao-chuan, in Chinese calligraphy, a

standardized and simplified form of the earlier dazhuan script, in which all lines are of even thickness
and curves and circles are relatively predominant.

Seal script, also sigillary script (Chinese: 篆書; pinyin: zhuànshū), is an ancient style of writing Chinese
characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. It evolved organically
out of the Zhou dynasty bronze script.

100 AD- Book (parchment codex)

A codex is essentially an ancient book, consisting of one or more quires of sheets of papyrus or
parchment folded together to form a group of leaves, or pages.

105 AD- The Chinese invented woodblock printing and paper

Woodblock printing is one of the reasons that China was a cultural and scientific hub while Europe went
through the Dark Ages. It is thought that woodblock printing was developed under the Tang dynasty,
which lasted from 618 to 906 CE. By the end of their rule, the technique had been perfected.
Woodblock printing is a relief print technique in which images, designs, or words are carved in reverse
onto a block of wood using wood carving tools. The image is then inked and printed onto paper, cloth,
or other materials.

2. The Mechanical Age: 1450 – 1850

-This is the age that we observe the first connections between today's technology and its
ancestors.

1455- Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press using movable metal type

Around 1450, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg introduced the metal movable-type printing press
in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. The small
number of alphabetic characters needed for European languages was an important factor.

Gutenberg' process of making type began by hand carving the mirror image of each letter on the end of
a soft steel punch, which was later hardened. The punch was struck into a softer metal matrix, usually of
copper. The matrix was then used as the base of a mold which shaped an individual piece of type.

1755- Samuel Johnson's dictionary standardized English spelling

The dictionary created by Samuel Johnson was used as the standard until the Oxford English Dictionary
was published in 1884. The Oxford dictionary was created by Oxford University and is considered one of
the most well-known and widely-used dictionaries in the English-speaking world.

There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a group of London
booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500 guineas (£1,575), equivalent
to about £260,000 in 2023. Johnson took seven years to complete the work, although he had claimed he
could finish it in three. He did so single-handedly, with only clerical assistance to copy the illustrative
quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson produced several revised editions during his life.

1802- The Library of Congress was established

The Library of Congress provides Congress with objective research to inform the legislative process,
administers the national copyright system, and manages the largest collection of books, recordings,
photographs, maps and manuscripts in the world.

What was the purpose of the Library of Congress?

The primary function of the Library of Congress is to serve the Congress. In addition, the Library provides
service to government agencies, other libraries, scholars, and the general public.

- Invention of the carbon arc lamp

Sir Humphry Davy constructed the first arc lamp (1807), using a battery of 2,000 cells to create a
100-millimetre (4-inch) arc between two charcoal sticks.
An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc. The carbon arc light,
which consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in air, invented by Humphry Davy in the first
decade of the 1800s, was the first practical electric light.

1824- Research on persistence of vison published

Persistence of vision is the optical illusion that occurs when the visual perception of an object does not
cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding from it have ceased to enter the eye. The illusion
has also been described as "retinal persistence" persistence of impressions" simply "persistence" and
other variations. A very commonly given example of the phenomenon is the apparent fiery trail of a
glowing coal or burning stick while it is whirled around in the dark.

Persistence of vision is a type of optical illusion where the human eye continues to briefly see an image
after it has disappeared from view. It is utilised in animation to give the impression of motion.

1830- First viable design for a digital computer

The English inventor Charles Babbage, however, is generally credited with having conceived the first
automatic digital computer. During the 1830s Babbage devised his so-called Analytical Engine, a
mechanical device designed to combine basic arithmetic operations with decisions based on its own
computations.

- Augusta Lady Byron writes the world's first computer program

Ada Lovelace, in full Ada King, countess of Lovelace, original name Augusta Ada Byron, Lady
Byron, (born December 10, 1815, Piccadilly Terrace, Middlesex [now in London], England—died
November 27, 1852, Marylebone, London), English mathematician, an associate of Charles
Babbage, for whose prototype of a digital computer she created a program. She has been called
the first computer programmer.

1837- Invention of the telegraph in Great Britain and the United States

While scientists and inventors across the world began experimenting with batteries and the principles of
electromagnetism to develop some kind of communication system, the credit for inventing the
telegraph generally falls to two sets of researchers: William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in England,
and Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail in the United States.

Telegraph, any device or system that allows the transmission of information by coded signal over
distance. Many telegraphic systems have been used over the centuries, but the term is most often
understood to refer to the electric telegraph, which was developed in the mid-19th century and for
more than 100 years was the principal means of transmitting printed information by wire or radio wave.

1846- The typewriter was widely used.

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter

has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by
striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth
century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device. Although many
modern typewriters have one of several similar designs, their invention was incremental, developed by
numerous inventors working independently or in competition with each other over a series of decades.

3. The Electromechanical Age: 1850 - 1940. – Communication

- The most important advance in this era is to use of electricity.

1861- Motion pictures were projected onto a screen

WILLIAM THOMAS SHAW ( - )

Shaw constructs an eight-sided drum housing Stereoscopic Photographs, and views them
through the Stereoscope by Wheatstone. Shaw's device is known as the Stereostrope.

1876-Dewey Decimal system was introduced

The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a
proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their
appropriate location based on subject. It was first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in
1876. Originally described in a 44-page pamphlet, it has been expanded to multiple volumes and revised
through 23 major editions, the latest printed in 2011. The decimal number classification introduced the
concepts of relative location and relative index. Libraries previously had given books permanent shelf
locations that were related to the order of acquisition rather than topic. The classification's notation
makes use of three-digit numbers for main classes, with fractional decimals allowing expansion for
further detail. Numbers are flexible to the degree that they can be expanded in linear fashion to cover
special aspects of general subjects.

1877-Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated high-speed photography

Photographer Eadweard Muybridge uses high-speed stop-motion photography to capture a horse's

motion. The photos prove that the horse has all four feet in the air during some parts of its stride. The
shots settle an old argument … and start a new medium and industry.

1899-First magnetic recordings were released

"The first magnetic recording device was demonstrated and patented by the Danish inventor Valdemar
Poulsen in 1898. Poulsen made a magnetic recording of his voice on a length of piano wire. MAGNETIC
RECORDING traces the development of the watershed products and the technical breakthroughs in
magnetic recording that took place during the century from Paulsen's experiment to today's ubiquitous
audio, video, and data recording technologies including tape recorders, video cassette recorders, and
computer hard drives.

The principle of magnetic recording was first demonstrated by the Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen in
1900, when he introduced a machine called the telegraphone that recorded speech magnetically on
steel wire.

1902-Motion picture special effects were used

The earliest special effects in cinema were simple and relied on practical techniques. Filmmakers used
basic camera tricks such as stop-motion animation, puppetry, and in-camera editing to create illusions
on the screen. One of the earliest examples of special effects can be seen in the 1902 film "A Trip to the
Moon" by Georges Méliès. Méliès used basic stop-motion techniques to create the illusion of a
spacecraft landing on the moon and encountering strange creatures.

1906- Lee DeForest invented the electronic amplifying tube (triode)

In October 20, 1906, Lee de Forest announced his invention, a triode called audion, at a meeting.
Despite having invented the first triode, which served as an amplifying device that changed the face of
the broadcasting industry, de Forest was plagued by many failures. Lee De Forest invented the audion, a
vacuum tube device that could take a weak electrical signal and amplify it into a larger one. It has been
used as an amplifier for both audio and radio signals, as an oscillator, and in electronic circuits.

1923- Television camera tube was invented by Zvorkyn

American inventor Vladimir Zworykin, the “father of television," conceived two components key to that
invention: the iconoscope and the kinescope. The iconoscope was an early electronic camera tube used
to scan an image for the transmission of television.

1926- First practical sound movie

Enter the 1926 film Don Juan, directed by Alan Crosland. This motion picture premiered at the Warner
Theater in New York. And it was the first to feature a synchronized music score and sound effects. The
only drawback? It didn’t include dialogue. But all other sounds were made possible by using the
Vitaphone sound system (you found the rest of the cliffhanger!)

1927- The invention of the first television.

Philo Taylor Farnsworth made his first successful electronic television transmission on September 7,
1927, and filed a patent for his system that same year. Farnsworth continued to perfect his system and
gave the first demonstration to the press in September 1928.
1939- Regularly scheduled television broadcasting began in the US

In April 1939 RCA's National Broadcasting Company (NBC) introduced regularly scheduled, electronic
television broacasting in America. The first television broadcast aired was the dedication of the RCA
pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fairgrounds. It was introduced by David Sarnoff himself.

4. The Electronic Age: 1940. – present

- That is the age that we are currently living in.

1940- Beginnings of information science as a discipline

Information science, discipline that deals with the processes of storing and transferring information.
It brings together concepts and methods from disciplines such as library science, computer science
and engineering, linguistics, and psychology in order to develop techniques and devices to aid in the
handling—that is, in the collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, and use—of
information.

1945- Vannevar Bush foresaw the invention of hypertext

Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) is normally considered the "grandfather" of hypertext, since he

proposed a system we would now describe as a hypertext system as long ago as 1945. This system,
the Memex ("memory extender"), was never implemented, however, but was only described in
theory in Bush's papers. Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic
devices with references to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents
are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically activated by a mouse click, keypress set, or
screen touch.

1946- ENIAC computer was developed

 ENIAC was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in
1945. There were other computers that had combinations of these features, but the ENIAC had all of
them in one computer. It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical
problems" through reprogramming.

1948-Birth of field-of-information theory proposed by Claude E. Shannon

In the case of communication of information over a noisy channel, this abstract concept was
formalized in 1948 by Claude Shannon in a paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication, in
which information is thought of as a set of possible messages, and the goal is to send these messages
over a noisy channel, and to have the receiver reconstruct the message with low probability of error, in
spite of the channel noise. Shannon's main result, the noisy-channel coding theorem showed that, in the
limit of many channel uses, the rate of information that is asymptotically achievable is equal to the
channel capacity, a quantity dependent merely on the statistics of the channel over which the messages
are sent.

1957- Planar transistor was developed by Jean Hoerni

Jean Hoerni's “planar” process improved transistor reliability by creating a flat surface structure
protected with an insulating silicon dioxide layer. Robert Noyce then proposed interconnecting
transistors on the wafer by depositing aluminum “wires” on top.

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. It is
one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material, usually
with at least three terminals for connection to an electronic circuit.

1958- First integrated circuit

On Sept. 12, 1958, Jack Kilby, a TI engineer, invented the integrated circuit. It would revolutionize
the electronics industry, helping make cell phones and computers widespread today. To honor him,
Texas Instruments held its first Jack Kilby Day on Friday, Sept.

An integrated circuit is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece of semiconductor material,
usually silicon. Large numbers of miniaturized transistors and other electronic components are
integrated together on the chip.

1960- Library of Congress developed LC MARC (machine-readable code)

MARC. The Library of Congress developed MARC in the 1960's. Their intent was to create a
computer-readable format that could be used for bibliographic records, enabling libraries to download
cataloging, share information, and search all parts of a cataloging record.

LC MARC format

When the Library of Congress began to use computers in the 1960s, it devised the LC MARC format,
a system of using brief numbers, letters, and symbols within the cataloging record itself to mark
different types of information.

1969- UNIX operating system was developed, which could handle multitasking
 Unix is a multiuser, multitasking operating system that was developed by Bell Laboratories in 1969.
In a multiuser system, many users can use the system simultaneously. A multitasking system is capable
of doing multiple jobs.

1971- Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip

The first microprocessor was the Intel 4004, which was introduced in 1971. During the early 1980s
very large-scale integration (VLSI) vastly increased the circuit density of microprocessors. In the 2010s a
single VLSI circuit holds billions of electronic components on a chip identical in size to the LSI circuit.

1972- Optical laserdisc was developed by Philips and MCA

An early optical videodisc technology for movies and training. Introduced in 1978, Pioneer LaserDisc
players came out two years later and became the choice for commercial use. Never widely used, by the
1990s, LaserDiscs were superseded by Video CDs and then DVDs.

1974- MCA and Philips agreed on a standard videodisc ecoding format

After a year or two of negotiating, Philips and MCA resolved all their differences in September of
1974 and pooled their considerable resources towards developing a compatible videodisc system, each
compromising their own systems slightly to allow for complete interchangeability. Yet it wasn't until four
years later that the first few players began to roll off Philips' assembly line in Holland, with just a few
discs being produced by MCA's Carson, California pressing plant. As documented in this and many other
electronics publications, those first players and discs had more than their fair share of technical bugs,
mostly concerning the problematic and complex laser assembly and the fact that a large number of
defective videodiscs slipped thrpugh their QC inspectors.

1975- Altair Microcomputer Kit was released: first personal computer for the public

The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU.
Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics
and was sold by mail order through advertisements there, in Radio-Electronics, and in other hobbyist
magazines.

1977- RadioShack introduced the first complete personal computer

One of the First Personal Computers In 1977, Tandy's Radio Shack division introduced one of the
first personal computers, the TRS-80. It became widely used in small business and was a major
contributor to the personal computer explosion.

1981- Osborne 1 was created. The first true mobile computer according to historians.
Osborne 1. The Osborne 1 is considered the first true mobile computer by most historians.
Adam Osborne founded Osborne Computer and produced the Osborne 1 in 1981. The Osborne 1
had a five-inch screen, incorporating a modem port, two 51⁄4-inch floppy drives, and a large
collection of bundled software applications.
1983-The first "laptop" computer was made.

1983: Radio Shack releases the TRS-80 Model 100, a 4-pound battery-operated portable version of
its TRS-80 Model III with a flat design that looks more like modern laptops of today.
 1984- Apple Macintosh computer was introduced

The Mac, short for Macintosh, is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple
Inc. The product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, as well as the iMac, Mac
Mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are sold with the macOS operating system.

Mid 1980s- Artificial intelligence was separated from information science

In the 1980s a form of AI program called "expert systems" was adopted by corporations around the
world and knowledge became the focus of mainstream AI research. In those same years, the Japanese
government aggressively funded AI with its fifth generation computer project.

1987- Hypercard was developed by Bill Atkinson recipe box metaphor

HyperCard was developed by Bill Atkinson and gifted to Apple on the basis that Apple would release
it for free use on all Macintoshes. It was initially released in August 1987. It immediately became a huge
success and was used in many ways by many people, many of whom began programming for the first
time.

HyperCard was used to create a wide variety of software products, such as scientific databases,
educational resources, video games, and interactive magazines.

1991- Four hundred fifty complete works of literature on one CDROM was released

The Library of the Future (World Library, $399; 714-748-7197) is what CD technology is all about. On a
single disc are more than 450 complete works by more than 100 authors, including all of Shakespeare,
Chaucer, Aristotle and Plato, and the complete texts of the major religious documents of world religions.
The volume is breathtaking in scope and includes authors from Aeschylus to Mary Wollstonecraft. It
features works as diverse as ''Dracula'' and ''War and Peace.'' It also makes great use of the CD`s search
capability, allowing you to find in an instant, say, all references to ''liberty'' in the 18th Century texts
included on the disc.

1995- Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet explorer) was
included in the Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly
abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as
part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995.

- The company Amazon went online as Amazon.com

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

The Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) encryption algorithm is an asymmetric encryption algorithm that

is widely used in many products and services. Asymmetric encryption uses a key pair that is
mathematically linked to encrypt and decrypt data. The team say they cracked 48-bit RSA using a 10-
qubit quantum computer-based hybrid system and could do the same for 2048-bit if they had access to
a quantum computer with at least 372 qubits
 - The domain name for Google was registered.
Google.com was registered 20 years ago, on September 15, 1997, according to Icann, the
organization that regulates domain names.

2002- Friendster was founded by a Canadian computer programmer Jonathan Abrams.

Friendster was founded by Canadian computer programmer Jonathan Abrams in 2002, before
MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2004), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites. Friendster.com went
live in 2003 and was adopted by 3 million users within the first few months.

2003- The first release of Skype.

Skype is software that enables the world's conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use
Skype to make free video and voice one-to-one and group calls, send instant messages and share files
with other people on Skype. You can use Skype on whatever works best for you – on your mobile,
computer or tablet.

2004- Facebook was launched as a social networking service.

Facebook is a social networking site that makes it easy for you to connect and share with family and
friends online. Originally designed for college students, Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark
Zuckerberg while he was enrolled at Harvard University.

2005- YouTube was activated as a video-sharing website.

YouTube is an online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno,
California, United States. Accessible worldwide, it was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen,
Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google and is the second most visited website in the
world, after Google Search.

2006- Twitter was created and launched on the same year.

Twitter is a free social networking site where users broadcast short posts known as tweets. These
tweets can contain text, videos, photos or links.

2010- Instagram, a free mobile app for iOS operating system, was launched.

Instagram is a free photo and video sharing app available on iPhone and Android. People can upload
photos or videos to our service and share them with their followers or with a select group of friends.
They can also view, comment and like posts shared by their friends on Instagram.

2011- Creation of Snapchat

Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos, called snaps, that
are meant to disappear after they're viewed. The essential function is to take a picture or video, add
filters, lenses, or other effects, and share it with friends.

2013- Vine, a short-form video hosting service was launched.

Vine was an American short-form video hosting service where users could share six-second-long
looping video clips. It was originally launched on January 24, 2013, by Vine Labs, Inc.