Age of information can easily be alluded to have begun in the ages of computers but I actual it has long sense of long cultural process .since the age of reason and revolution information has roots of age of information have existed .age of information is believed by a few scholars including the founder of Microsoft Bill Gates and academia’s such as Michael Riordan, and Lillian Hoddeson began in the year 1947 during the invention of transistors .
However, Daniel Headrick establishes a more distant source for the information-saturated environment in which we now live. Headrick gives out a verdict that state that information is as old as humanity itself .there is no specific time for the beginning of the Information Age, rather the main focus should be on the evolution of information through history. Through the ages of information, they have been several technologies that facilitated the development of information, but Hendricks wants to less focus on technology as a factor for the growth of information and but focus on information system during the period of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Headrick needs to focus on information system lead to the development of five topics that revolve around information system. The first, organizing information describes the creation of a new language to communicate the scientific information this was created by Lavoisier and Linnaeus and Guyton de Morveau. Headrick second heading, Transforming information, I believe try to focus on the measure by the government to collect information statistic about the populations, he cites an example of a French regime to need to conduct the census in the 1790s. The third heading Display information, the invention of graphical representation help in mapmaking during the 18th century. Under the fourth heading storing information, I believe Headrick describe 18th-century encyclopedias and dictionaries, an overview that thankfully ranges considerably more widely than Diderot’s Encyclopedia Finally, the heading communication information here Headrick think that the development of various services of postal around North America and European as well as the invention of telegraphy. Here, in particular, is see the invention of telegraphic visual made in the 1790s in France and spread all over Europe.
The most intriguing fact about Heidrick book is how he attributes the rise of information to the need of the absolutist enlightened of the government and regime developing policies to drive economic growth. However, all too often the book simply asserts that because this was the Age of Reason, the innovations occurred because they were inherently more rational. Linnaeus’s nomenclature appealed to the “orderly minds of mid-eighteenth-century rationalists” (p. 25), while the physician William Farr’s statistical compilation of disease data for the English General Register Office gave “a more scientific basis to the classification of diseases” (p. 88), and so on
What most impressive about this book is Hendricks story, is the coverage is in-depth and comprehensive, but it has a shortcoming too. First, the how he treats the topic is generally uneven. The encyclopedias and dictionaries discussion, for example, is well and deep informed by the critical sources. The procedures of Lavoisier’s chemical nomenclature, metric system, and Linnaeus taxonomy are far more superficial as is the analysis of postal systems, Second Headrick coverage of his breadth makes us wonder about what it is he is trying to describe it.
Such concerns are certainly not diminished by the wholly inadequate definition provided for the book’s central concept, information. As the book defines it, information is “the patterns of energy and matter that humans understand” (p. 4). This undermines somewhat the object, I should say. The book failure to converse deeply as to why these changes occurred. Leaving aside the question of whether all of the changes described really constitute changes in information systems, whether novelties can still be traced back in time in the 18th century or could they trace farther back in time? a book like this is ideal for rumination for its synthetic reach is unquestionable
when information came of age shows that like the roots of democracy and industrialization, the foundations of the Information Age were built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
In conclusion, social media has made technology and information to be shared at ease and has changed the way information is shared. Daniel Headrick has attested in his book that technology will always grow, and that is what we are experiencing in advancement in social media. Innovations like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snap chat and many more have made information to be shared very fast and accurately. The only challenge is privacy in social media is really at risk. There is a need to increase the privacy policies and security of every person in the social media. Daniel Headrick’s book is one of the best and clearly analyses everything and how revolution technology has taken. It stands out and has thoroughly expressed the need for information and better technology to support this need. The need will always be there and technology will evolve as the time goes on.
Reference
Headrick, D. R. (2000). When information came of age: Technologies of knowledge in the age of reason and revolution, 1700-1850. Oxford University Press on Demand.