In your own words, define information technology.

Unit 9 Readings In this unit’s readings, you examine information technologies.

Required

• Winston, M. E., & Edelbach, R. (2014). Society, ethics, and technology (5th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

o ANDREW J. FLANIGAN, CRAIG FLANIGAN, AND JOHN FLANIGAN: Technical Code and the Social   Constructions of the Internet

o MAX BOOT: The Consequences of the Information Revolution

o NICHOLAS CARR: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

o REBECCA MACKINNON: Corporate Censorship

Directions: Using the required academic readings and supplemental academic research, please address the following while adhering to the Discussion Board Rubric:

• In your own words, define information technology.
• How has the internet shaped people and society?
• How does information overload affect your ability to analyze information?
• What other technology so dramatically changed society faster than the internet?
• Is the internet a good thing?
• If there was no internet, how would your daily life, work, education, etc., be affected?

 

Information Technology’s Effect on Society

“The medium is the message.”

“All media exists to invest our lives with artificial perception and arbitrary values.”

— Marshall McLuhan

Let’s travel back to the 1400s, shall we? You will recall that Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press was a revolutionary technology, one that would change world history. Tom Wheeler, former Chairman of the FCC, writes that

the network of printers that sprang up across Europe ended the monopoly of information that priests and princes had exploited in pursuit of power. The free movement of ideas fired the Reformation, spread the Renaissance, and became the basis of all that followed. (Wheeler, 2019)

Gutenberg’s invention was the first information network. Other information networks would follow: the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television.

The information network you are most familiar with today is the internet, the single “biggest technological construction of our daily existence” (Blum, 2012). Because of the internet, you have access to more information than any person pre-2020. No longer is information the prerogative of the elites in society. Information is now democratized like never before.

The positives of the internet are many. You can now get a university degree, no matter your physical location/proximity to a university. As an example, members of the armed forces can serve their country at the same time they work on a bachelor’s degree. You can research any historical era for a school paper, find out what tomorrow’s weather will be, look up information on the new movie coming out, or check the latest sports. Any piece of data you could possibly want is available 24/7. Over 4.5 billion people do just that. Information from Google indicates that there are “40,000 search queries every second on average, which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide” (Google Search Statistics, n.d.). All in the quest for information.

However, there are certain aspects of the internet that should give you pause.

While a precise number is impossible, it is estimated that there are over 40 zettabytes of data on the internet (Petrov, 2020). One zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes! With easy access to all of this information, is society experiencing information overload?

Communication theorist Neil Postman believed that yes, information overload was a critical issue. As long ago as 1992, Postman wrote that information “has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems” (Postman, 1992). Today, with 40+ zettabytes of data available online, many people find that too much information is overwhelming, leading to confusion and uncertainty. Is the information obtained online accurate? How can you tell? What happens when you run across contradictory information about a topic?

Another issue concerns political polarization as a result of the political information contained on internet sites. In the 1950s, people had access to three or four television networks, a couple of radio stations, and their local paper. During this pre-internet era, the political information a person consumed was basically the same as their neighbors. Conversations, therefore, took place against a backdrop of commonality concerning topics.

Today, on the other hand, the internet allows people to visit specific “news” sites geared to their political proclivities. Many of the individuals who frequent such sites have preconceived notions, and want those notions to be verified (often referred to as “preaching to the choir”). Many politically liberal leaning individuals may visit a liberal “news” site, while a conservative individual may frequent a conservative “news” site. Bring those two people together to discuss a political issue, and they might as well be speaking different languages.

As a result of the media’s agenda setting and framing, political polarization occurs, in which people cannot even agree on the terms to debate because they received different information from contradictory sources. In a survey by the Pew Research Center, it was found that “73% of the public says that most Republican and Democratic voters not only disagree over plans and policies, but also disagree on ‘basic facts’” (Pew Research Center, 2019). That is the end result of the many news-oriented websites where political opinions are packaged as facts.

Even with the negative aspects of this information network, it is so intertwined with your existence that it is impossible to imagine your daily routine without it.