Chapter 15 IT and Computer Application.docVIP

Chapter 15 IT and Computer Application 15.1 Information Revolution 15.1.1. Introduction Information Revolution refers to the fundamental changes in the production and use of information, occurring in the late 20th century. Human societies throughout history have had “information specialists” from traditional healers to newspaper editors ; and they have had “information technologies” from cave painting to accountancy ; but two interrelated developments, social and technological, underpin the diagnosis that an information revolution is now occurring. 15.1.2. The Direction of the Information Revolution The outcome of the information revolution is seen by some commentators as likely to be as profound as the shift from agricultural to industrial society. Others see the transformation as essentially a change from one form of industrial society to another, as has happened in earlier technological revolutions. One major issue is how rapidly social institutions adapt to take advantage of the new ways of doing things that new IT makes possible. While some jobs and some areas of people’s lives do seem to have changed rapidly, many others appear to have been affected relatively little. Historians point out that it can take a very long time for what in retrospect seems the obvious way to use a technology to become standard practice. For example, electric motors were first used as if they were steam engines, with one centralized motor powering numerous devices, rather than numerous small motors, each powering its own appliance. New IT has often been introduced into well-established patterns of working and living without radically altering them. For example, the traditional office, with secretaries working at keyboards and notes being written on paper and manually exchanged, has remained remarkably stable, even if personal computers have replaced typewriters. Often the technology that gains acceptance is that which most easily fits within traditional ways of doing things. For