Evolution of Societies and Technology

• Societies and technology have evolved over time.
• 8000 BCE: Agricultural society era
• 1800 CE: Start of the Industrial Society
• Ca. 1970: Dawn of the Information Society (Post-Industrial era) with computers, communications, and networks
• Ca. 2025 (presumed): The Molecular Society, involving biotechnology, nanotechnology, and materials science

Technological Revolutions

• 1st Industrial Revolution (1760-1900): Marked by the invention of the steam engine by James Watt
• 2nd Industrial Revolution (1900-1960): Ushered in by the invention of the internal combustion engine
• 3rd Industrial Revolution (1960-2000): Rise of computers and robots
• Information/Digital Revolution (2000- ): Characterized by the Internet, World Wide Web, genetic engineering, and 3D printers

Characteristics of Industrial Revolutions

• 1760-1900: Transition from coal to steam engines, with textile and steel industries leading to trains
• 1900-1960: Shift to oil and electricity, internal combustion engines, boosting metallurgy, auto, and machine building, leading to cars
• 1960-2000: Nuclear energy and natural gas powering computers and robots, advancing auto and chemistry, producing cars and planes
• 2000-: Green energies driving the Internet, 3D printing, and genetic engineering in high-tech industries, leading to electric and ultra-fast trains

The Industrial Society

• Economic mode of production primarily based on machine technology for producing goods
• In Western society, this period shows a division of labor, urbanization, and changed production/distribution system
• Mass markets and new consumption patterns were established, affecting daily life aspects
• Industrial society is further defined by complexity, differentiation, increased societal dependence, and rising individual autonomy
• Sociology emerged during the Industrial Revolution to explain societal transformations

The Information Society

• Emerged in the 1960s when social scientists realized industrial societies hit a turning point, which set the stage for a new phase
• Labels for this new society include "knowledge society” and “technetronic era"
• Invention of computers in the 1940s, expanded with information technology in later decades/ early 1990s
• Computer technology was mainly for business and science in the 1960s and 1970s
• Microprocessors led to distributed information and personal computers
• Networking (LAN and WAN) connected computers/information technology with telecommunications
• Management and dissemination of information became a strong focus for providers and users by the 1980s
• Encompasses specific social relationships, structures, and processes of modern societies, is a political agenda
• Includes Bangemann's report (1994) and the Bonn declaration (1997), Al Gore's "information highway", and policy development by UN, OECD, BRIC
• The criticism that this is technological determinism and state control of progress

Approaches to Defining the Information Society

• Conceptual problems exist, but can be a political agenda/methodology to measure society development
• Five definitions of the information society include technological, economic, occupational, spatial, and cultural
• Innovation of ICT and technological infrastructure is seen as ushering in a new society.
• Gross national product (GNP) shows an increase in the information business, this shows it is an information economy
  • Fritz Machlup: Contribution of 5 industry groups to GDP
  • March Porat: Economy of three sectors (primary, secondary, and noninformation)

Approaches to the Information Society

• Occupations in information work show that decline of manufacturing means a rise in service sector employment, replacing manual labor with white-collar jobs.
• Spatial approaches emphasize information networks that connect locations, affecting time and space.
• Cultural approaches state contemporary culture is heavily information-laden
• We exist in a media-saturated environment, with life essentially about symbolization and exchanging messages.

Future Molecular Society

• Focused on the molecular level, using nanotechnology, biotechnology, and materials science
• Shifting from information communication to nanotechnology and biotechnology
• Managing globalization-localization using virtual corporations, moving towards molecular economy enterprises
• From chemical to molecular energy sources
• From information networks to nonbiological and molecular computing intelligence
• The move from silicon/software to nanomaterials
• From Nuclear/Chemical/Biological to Genetic/Nanotechnological/Robotic weapons

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

• Refers to the products/practices used to store, organize, manipulate and communicate information
• New ICTs combine computers and telecommunications and software that allows to access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information

Digital Computers and Technology

• The word "digital"- from Latin digitus=finger-refers to of one the oldest tools.
• Electronic tools, systems, devices, and resources generate, transmit, store, or process data recorded in binary code

Milestones of Computer Development

• 1936: Alan Turing develops the idea of a theoretical computing maching ('Can a Machine Think?')
• 1938: Konrad Zuse creates the Z1 computer (binary, digital, punch tape)
• 1939: George Stibitz-Complex Number Calculator & John Vincent Atanasoff/Clifford Berry: ABC computer prototype
• 1939-1944: Harold H. Aitken Mark I (IBM 701 (1955)) (electromechanical Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator)
• 1945: John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly design the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)
• 1947: Douglas Engelbart theorizes on interactive computing with keyboard and screen
• 1948: John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley (Bell Telephone Laboratories) published the devices for solid state
• 1955: Bell Labs introduces it's first transistor computer
• 1963 : Douglas Engelbart invents/patents the computer mouse
• 1973: minicomputer Xerox Alto (1973)
• 1975: Microsoft founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell logic interpreters
• 1976: Apple Computers is founded by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs

Internet

• Global network linked by telecommunications technologies (copper, glass, etc)
• Each linked computer resides in a nested hierarchy of networks (local, server, etc.)
• Links have different speeds and capacities and use communication protocols (TCP/IP protocol)
• The Internet allows connections to other networks using common communication protocols.
• The World Wide Web is an interconnected system of public web pages accessible through the Internet
• Web provides access to connected documents through hypertext/hypermedia links
• Three fundamental technologies are HTML, URL, HTTP
• First web browser was Mosaic (1993)

Cyberspace

• Cyberspace literally means ‘navigable space' (word kyber Greek to navigate).
• Coined in Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson: digital space of networked computers with visual and electronic access
• Cyberspace is the conceptual space in ICTs (not the technology itself)
• Cyberspace consists of rapidly expanding spaces that provide different interaction/communication forms
• Can be categorized in: Internet, virtual reality, conventional telecommunications with convergence

Social Media

• The term emerged as a marketing slogan
• Defined as online sociotechnical systems (social networking sites, blogs, wikis, etc.)
• It is a catchall phrase that describes the many novel online
• Social network sites are web-based that allow individuals to construct a public profile, articulate a list of other users, and traverse their connections
• Social media are online tools that allow interactions between users (Hansen et al., 2010)
• Social media are database platforms that combine private with public communication
• Social media includes Web 2.0 Internet-based applications

Applications

• Can have user-generated content and user-specific profiles for a site/app
• Can help forming social networks by connecting profiles
• Examples include blogs, business networks, collaborative projects, enterprise social networks, forums, microblogs, and photo sharing