The Era of Digital Information (Essay Sample)

The United States Department of Defense created the platform for the digital revolution by transforming their networking tool, ARPANET, from a military safety net to a civilian internet. This shift in ideology kick-started a technological and societal revolution that has become an integral part of people’s lives. In the current status quo, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the key enabler of both economic growth and improvements in society’s standards of living. Fifty years ago, the average individual sought an employment path mostly shaped by birth and education, often constrained to a single employer until retirement. Today, teenagers are coding websites, producing films, and establishing professional networks through social media. The Digital Information Age marked the culmination of the industrial revolution and signaled the reshaping of established conventions, and the beginning of an economy based on computerized devices and networks.
The manifestations of ICT, including digital data, computers, and the internet, are the latest additions to technologies that helped people since the ancient times such as clay tablets. These artifacts passed on collective knowledge from one generation to another to create organized civilizations. Old informational systems were poorly connected or isolated and thus could not connect to a larger structure (FreedomLab 2018). However, with the advent of digital ICT systems in the 20th century, there was a convergence and spread of information across time and space. This linkage is because the computer algorithms and communication channels have vastly similar base codes to the digital data they manipulate. This digital revolution created new industries, including social media, streaming services, high-frequency trading, online marketplaces, and computer programing.
The Digital Age has improved people’s access to information. Anyone across the world can instantly access useful material given that he or she has an active internet connection – whether it is a student in Kenya accessing Massachusetts Institute of Technology resources online, or people in Brazil searching for information to understand how to treat a medical condition. Software developers have also created real-time language translation applications where academics, scholars, and investigators can access information in foreign languages (Atkinson and Castro 4). Interconnected societies affect both young and old, transforming them from employees to micro-entrepreneurs. Being and eighteen-year-old hedge fund manager is a remarkable achievement, but there are also eighty-year-old entrepreneurs making the headlines (Kaufman Forbes). The digital age makes it possible for talent, skills, and experience to become marketable commodities outside the confines of traditional employment.
The information revolution, combined with global supply and demand, is reshaping established practices of conducting business. The term local once referred to a person’s street, town, or state: however, the global space is now local. People all over the world are outsourcing their services to firms from China to Australia to the United States, at the comfort of their homes. Territorial boundaries are no longer a limitation; work, social, and business partners are just a digital handshake away (Kaufman Forbes). Companies are rethinking long-standing workplace conventions such as stipulated office hours and physical office space. While a suit and the nine to five job once defined success, one can earn a living by working in pajamas and starting at a time of their convenience.