www.ssresearcher.com T H E J O U R N A L O F E N V I R O N ME N T A N D R E S E A R C H
FSSR
www.ssresearcher.com
DECEMBER 2012
VOLUME I NO I
THE ONSET OF THE INFORMATION AGE WITH DIGITAL REVOLUTION, JUST AS
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
DR.NABIN PATTANBI
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY
UTTAR PRADESH
ABSTRACT
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DECEMBER 2012
www.ssresearcher.com The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is a period
in human history characterized by the shift from traditional industry that the industrial
revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based on the manipulation of
information, i.e., an information society. The onset of the Information Age is associated
with Digital Revolution, just as the Industrial Revolution marked the onset of the Industrial
Age.During the information age individuals gained the ability to transfer information freely, and
to have instant access to information that would have been difficult or impossible to find
previously.The
Information
Age
formed
by
capitalizing
on
the computer
microminiaturization advances, with a transition spanning from the advent of the personal
computer in the late 1970s to the internet's reaching a critical mass in the early 1990s, and the
adoption of such technology by the public in the two decades after 1990. Bringing about a fast
evolution of technology in daily life, as well as of educational life style, the Information Age has
allowed rapid global communications and networking to shape modern society.
The Internet was conceived as a fail-proof network that could connect computers together and be
resistant to any single point of failure. It's said that the Internet cannot be totally destroyed in one
event, and if large areas are disabled, the information is easily rerouted. It was created mainly
by DARPA; its initial software applications were e-mail and computer file transfer.
Though the Internet itself has existed since 1969, it was with the invention of the World Wide
Web in 1989 by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee and Belgian Robert Cailliau and its
implementation in 1991 that the Internet truly became a global network. Today the Internet is a
global platform for accelerating the flow of information and is pushing many, if not most, older
forms of media into obsolescence.
Library expansion was calculated in 1945 by Fremont Rider to double in capacity every 16 years,
if sufficient space were made available. He advocated replacing bulky, decaying printed works
with miniaturized microform analog photographs, which could be duplicated on-demand for
library patrons or other institutions. He did not foresee the digital technology that would follow
decades later to replace analog microform with digital imaging, storage, and transmission
mediums. Automated, potentially lossless digital technologies allowed vast increases in the
rapidity of information growth. Moore‘s law was formulated around 1970.
The proliferation of the smaller and less expensive personal computers and improvements in
computing power by the early 1980s resulted in a sudden access to and ability to share and store
information for more and more workers. Connectivity between computers within companies led
to the ability of workers at different levels to access greater amounts of information.
INFORMATION STORAGE – The world's technological capacity to store information grew
from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295
(optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007. This is the informational equivalent to less than one
730-MB CD-ROM per person in 1986 (539 MB per person), roughly 4 CD-ROM per person of
24 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESEARCH
DECEMBER 2012
www.ssresearcher.com 1993, 12 CD-ROM per person in the year 2000, and almost 61 CD-ROM per person in 2007.
Piling up the imagined 404 billion CD-ROM from 2007 would create a stack from the earth to
the moon and a quarter of this distance beyond (with 1.2 mm thickness per CD).
INFORMATION TRANSMISSION – The world's technological capacity to receive
information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed)
information in 1986, 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993, 1.2 (optimally
compressed) zettabytes in 2000, and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007 (this is the information equivalent of
174 newspapers per person per day). The world's effective capacity to exchange information
through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed)
information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, and 65
(optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007 (this is the information equivalent of 6 newspapers per
person per day). In the 1990s, the spread of the Internet caused a sudden leap in access to and
ability to share information in businesses, at home and around the globe. Technology was
developing so quickly that a computer costing $3,000.00 in 1997 would cost $2,000.00 two years
later and only $1000.00 the following year.
COMPUTATION – The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly
guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 108 MIPS in 1986, to 4.4 × 109 MIPS in
1993, 2.9 × 1011 MIPS in 2000 to 6.4 × 1012 MIPS in 2007.
Eventually, Information and Communication Technology—computers, computerized machinery,
fiber optics, communication satellites, Internet, and other ICT tools—became a significant part
of the economy. Microcomputers were developed and many business and industries were greatly
changed by ICT.
Nicholas Negroponte captured the essence of these changes in his 1995 book, Being Digital. His
book discusses similarities and differences between products made of atoms and products made
of bits. In essence, one can very cheaply and quickly make a copy of a product made of bits, and
ship it across the country or around the world both quickly and at very low cost.
The Information Age has impacted the workforce in several ways. First, it has created a situation
in which workers who perform tasks which are easily automated are being forced to find work
which involves tasks that are not easily automated. Second, workers are being forced to compete
in a global job market. Lastly workers are being replaced by computers that can do the job more
effectively and faster. This poses problems for workers in industrial societies, which are still to
be solved. However, solutions that involve lowering the working time usually find high
resistance.
Jobs traditionally associated with the middle class (assembly line workers, data processors,
foremen, and supervisors) are beginning to disappear, either through outsourcing or automation.
Individuals who lose their jobs must either move up, joining a group of "mind workers"
(engineers, doctors, attorneys, teachers, scientists, professors, executives, journalists,
consultants), or settle for low-skill, low-wage service jobs.
The "mind workers" are able to compete successfully in the world market and command high
wages. Conversely, production workers and service workers in industrialized nations are unable
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DECEMBER 2012
www.ssresearcher.com to compete with workers in developing countries and either lose their jobs through outsourcing
or are forced to accept wage cuts. In addition, the internet makes it possible for workers in
developing countries to provide in-person services and compete directly with their counterparts
in other nations.
This has had several major consequences:
INCREASED OPPORTUNITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Workers in developing countries have a competitive advantage which translates into increased
opportunities and higher wages. The full impact on the workforce in developing countries is
complex; there are downsides. (see discussion in section on globalization).
THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE WORKFORCE
In the past, the economic fate of workers was tied to the fate of national economies. For example,
workers in the United States were once well paid in comparison to the workers in other
countries. With the advent of the Information Age and improvements in communication, this is
no longer the case. Because workers are forced to compete in a global job market, wages are less
dependent on the success or failure of individual economies.
AUTOMATION, PRODUCTIVITY, AND JOB LOSS
There is another way in which the Information Age has impacted the workforce: automation and
computerization have resulted in higher productivity coupled with net job loss. In the United
States for example, from Jan 1972 to August 2010, the number of people employed in
manufacturing jobs fell from 17,500,001 to 11,500,000 while manufacturing value rose 270%.
It initially appeared that job loss in the industrial sector might be partially offset by the rapid
growth of jobs in the IT sector. However after the recession of March 2001, the number of jobs
in the IT sector dropped sharply and continued to drop until 2003. Even the IT sector is not
immune to this problem. As such, modern society still has to solve this social problem.
THE RISE OF INFORMATION-INTENSIVE INDUSTRY
Industry is becoming more information-intensive and less labor and capital-intensive
(see Information industry). This trend has important implications for the workforce; workers are
becoming increasingly productive as the value of their labor decreases. However, there are also
important implications for capitalism itself; not only is the value of labor decreased, the value of
capital is also diminished. In the classical model, investments in human capital and financial
capital are important predictors of the performance of a new venture. However, as demonstrated
by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, it now seems possible for a group of relatively
inexperienced people with limited capital to succeed on a large scale.
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