Summary
These articles take a look at technology as a major driver of life in the modern age. They do an in-depth exposition and analysis of among other things, the history of IT, communication and the internet, the importance of communication, information and information flow as well as the definition and different types of technology.
The article The Technologies of the Information Revolution by David S. Alberts et al traces the evolution of the technology that support the modern-day information society back to the investments made by the United States and other countries during the 1950s and 60s, spurred by the cold war. It recounts how simple technology evolves through the decades into more and more sophisticated versions of itself. It also enumerates and discusses some of the major technologies that form part of the contemporary information revolution. These include advanced semiconductors, advanced computers, fiber optics, cellular technology, satellite technology, advanced networking, improved human-computer interaction and digital transmission and compression (2).
The impact of technology had been immense and far-reaching. The authors contend that individually, each of the above technologies significantly enhances humankind’s ability to communicate, to utilize information and to overcome obstacles presented to communication of distance, time and location. Together, their impact is so huge and can be looked at from the following perspectives: increased speed, greater capacity for example the volume of information that can be relayed, enhanced flexibility for example the ability to access a piece of information from multiple sources, greater access as in situations when one is looking for information that is not locally available to him/her, more types of messages for example texts and voice messages and pictures. Technology has also led to heightened demand for more technology because people get used to having gadgets do work for them which leads to more technology.
The article concludes by predicting that these technologies and other advances in related information and communication technologies will expand humankind’s ability to overcome previous limitations and ability to communicate but the question it asks along with that is “what will be the effects of these immensely expanded abilities to communicate and to utilize information?” (11)
