Specific Issues In

Science,Technology,and
Society.
JOSHUA BUTLIG LAWANGON
ROSAURO LEJARSO
 THE INFORMATION AGE

• * Age of information
• * Age of computer
• * Digital or digitized age
• * Media age
• characterized by the transition from the traditional industry until the age of
information technology.
• The information age is defined as a “period starting in the last quarter of the 20 th
century when information became effortlessly accessible through publications and
through the management of information by computers and computer networks.”
 The Pre-Gutenberg World

• When the printing press was not yet available, information could be
processed tediously. Books were written and produced by hand. They
were made on surfaces of clay, wax, papyrus, and parchment. The hand-
produced books and other reading materials were restricted only to those
people who can afford to buy these materials, called the 5elite group of
people6. Information was only relayed to others through word-of-mouth
channels (Stacy, 2008).
 The Gutenberg Revolution
• It has begun with the introduction of printing, specifically the movable printing
press, by Gutenberg. His principle existed in such a way that information could be
passed on to every individual, but the access was expensive. Books printed in the
Gutenberg era were called incunabula (meaning cradle or birthplace). This
technology eventually diffused from Mainz to Subiaco in Italy, Paris, and then
London. Most books that were first printed were that religious texts of the
medieval period that were initially written in Latin but as time passed, some books
are written in the local language which made them available and understandable to
common people. Scientific and geographic discoveries spread at a fast rate as well
as medical books were also published.
 History Development
• It began around the 1970s and still going on today. This is the era in which
people could access information and knowledge easily.
 The Post-Gutenberg World
• This era can be described as the emergence of the internet and the world
wide web. This paved the way for the possible uploading and
downloading of all forms of media instruments such as video, audio, and
images. It enabled people to publish or spread the information
 The Rise of the Digital Age
• With the advent of modern technologies, the printing press is not the only
tool used in spreading information. Nowadays, information is readily
available to pass from one individual to another from here to even faraway
places.
 Computers
• Invented by Charles Babbage, an English mechanical engineer and
considered the 5father of computers6. This technology was designed for
mathematical calculations and simple decision-making capabilities. The
7main-frame computers8 were large room-sized computers that provide
people with data calculation and manipulation faster than the human
brain. Personal computers were also available which gave every
individual access to computers (Hughes & Hans, 2017)
 Types of Computer
• Personal computer
• Desktop computer
• Laptops
• Personal digital assistants (PDA)
• Server
• Mainframes
• Wearable computers
 The Internet
• Developed in California, US in the late 1960s the internet was mostly used
by scientists to communicate with other scientists. Vinton Cerf and Robert
Kahn are the people behind this marvelous piece of technology. It was a
government-controlled project until 1984 and its first countered problem
in using it was the speed. The development of Fiber-optics allowed
billions of bits of information to be received every minute and a company
named 5Intel6 was one of the companies that developed faster
microprocessors like the i5 and i7 that can process any data very quickly.
 World Wide Web
• Commonly known as 7www8 was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a
British computer scientist that started in the 1990s and it was basically for
commercial purposes. Home pages were made by companies, business
owners, or corporations to promote and sell their products, and eventually,
other items could be purchased online giving ease to shopping. Similarly,
online businesses can earn money through online transactions.
 Electronic Mail or E-mail
• Several years back, it would take several days to receive a letter and it
would also take a big amount of money to contact and talk to someone
very far away. Communication was made easier through 7E-mail8, the
invention of which was controversially claimed by V.A Shiva Ayyadurai,
an Indian-born American scientist and entrepreneur. He started building
the system in 1978 when he was 14 years old. The copyright for the term
E-mail was granted to him in 1982. E-mail is an avenue by which
messages are exchanged between people from different locations at a
faster rate (Rice & Barman-Adhikari, 2013).
 Google
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both Ph.D. students at Stanford University
developed Google as a research project in 1996. The domain
5google.com6 was registered in September 1997 and is now the most used
search engine on the world wide web. It offers us a variety of features
beyond searching for words, these may include synonyms or word
meanings, time zones, maps, weather forecasts, sports scores, calculations,
etc., and also for research or journal articles as references for theses and
dissertations. Yahoo in Japan is one of its great competitors of Google
 There are four periods of the Information
Age, namely:
• Pre-Mechanical -3,000 BC-1450 A.D.
• Mechanical - 1450- 1840
• Electro-Mechanic - 1840-1940
• Electronic/Information -1940- present
Contribution of Computers to the Society
• Computers are among the most important contributions of advances in the
Information Age to Society. A computer is an electronic device that stores
and processes data (information).