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View Full Version : Do we live in "The age of information"



Niale
12-20-2013, 03:18 PM
For example, bronze age, stone age.
What year will you say that we are currently living in now.
I think it is "The age of information". Because computers and digitalization is basically becoming a part of our life.
Information Age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age)

Denmark
12-20-2013, 03:20 PM
What year will you say that we are currently living in now.

2013.

Fuzakeru
12-20-2013, 03:22 PM
The golden age of "Twerking Selfies." :kakapo:

Ayen
12-20-2013, 03:28 PM
We live in an age where we have more access to free information that nobody utilizes because they're too lazy to look stuff up.

Niale
12-20-2013, 03:28 PM
What year will you say that we are currently living in now.

2013.
Not year, i ment time period. ^^
But you are right.


We live in an age where we have more access to free information that nobody utilizes because they're too lazy to look stuff up.

I wonder how it will develop in about 100 years

Ayen
12-20-2013, 03:33 PM
We live in an age where we have more access to free information that nobody utilizes because they're too lazy to look stuff up.

I wonder how it will develop in about 100 years

Medicine better have gone up sufficiently because if I'm still alive at 124 I better have good medicare.

AssassinDX
12-20-2013, 03:37 PM
We live in an age where we have more access to free information that nobody utilizes because they're too lazy to look stuff up.

I wonder how it will develop in about 100 years

This is how I feel, this is definitely the 'age of information' because since the birth of commercial internet usage we can read about/watch/gather information on more or less anything we like whereas before it was obviously a lot more difficult.

'The age of better information' is what I'm interested in, the means of gathering it that'll come long after we're all in the ground. I like to think it'll be like Futurama with proper virtual reality situations, like actually being there for reenactments of key moment in World War 2 so you're not just using you're imagination like we do now whilst reading about the horrors of war but actually experiencing it like we were really there when it happened.

The same with shopping online, I honestly believe humanity will walk around a virtual 'Amazon Mall' one day.

Agent Proto
12-20-2013, 03:47 PM
What year will you say that we are currently living in now.

2013.

There's only 11 days left...

Anyway, "Information Age" seems about right in the time period we're currently in, considering that information can be reached so easily nowadays because of the Internet and up-to-the-minute news.

Spuuky
12-20-2013, 05:08 PM
The defining feature of our 'age' is not the ability to find information, but the ability to create 'information.' Anyone can do it, and most people do, and it doesn't need to be accurate or meaningful.

Shorty
12-20-2013, 05:16 PM
Every age is the information age because we are constantly discovering new information and developing new technologies to help us advance as a species and we will continue to do that until we die out.

I don't really understand labeling the current times as "the age of information." Every new age can't be the age of information. It doesn't make sense. A hundred years from now, they won't call 2013 the age of information. They'll be teleporting to their boss' floating residence for dinner and feeling sorry for us suckers in the 2010's for using cars and bicycles and that will be the age of information, for a moment in time.

Psychotic
12-20-2013, 05:17 PM
The Age of Apat... meh.

Agent Proto
12-20-2013, 05:20 PM
Every age is the information age because we are constantly discovering new information and developing new technologies to help us advance as a species and we will continue to do that until we die out.

I don't really understand labeling the current times as "the age of information." Every new age can't be the age of information. It doesn't make sense. A hundred years from now, they won't call 2013 the age of information. They'll be teleporting to their boss' floating residence for dinner and feeling sorry for us suckers in the 2010's for using cars and bicycles and that will be the age of information, for a moment in time.

Perhaps a better name for this current "Information Age" would be the "Digital Age", or "Computer Age", or perhaps "New Media Age" Take your pick.

SirPrizes
12-20-2013, 05:22 PM
The Age of Information is probably most accurate, but it's also an age of distraction, perhaps even more. With the amount of entertainment available to us at any given time, people take the information side of the internet for granted and instead use it to distract themselves from what is happening in the world. The internet can be a great source of information, but it's not like we're in an age where we are an enlightened society absorbing all this information enthusiastically. It seems that your average internet user just stays in the loop of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter and doesn't care to look much beyond that.

Shorty
12-20-2013, 05:23 PM
Every age is the information age because we are constantly discovering new information and developing new technologies to help us advance as a species and we will continue to do that until we die out.

I don't really understand labeling the current times as "the age of information." Every new age can't be the age of information. It doesn't make sense. A hundred years from now, they won't call 2013 the age of information. They'll be teleporting to their boss' floating residence for dinner and feeling sorry for us suckers in the 2010's for using cars and bicycles and that will be the age of information, for a moment in time.

Perhaps a better name for this current "Information Age" would be the "Digital Age", or "Computer Age", or perhaps "New Media Age" Take your pick.

But all of those same things can apply to my point, because the digital age and new media will also advance. Computer age may perhaps be legit because I have no idea how we'll advance with computerized technology in the future, but we will probably not be using the same systems we are now.

"Computer" doesn't encompass all of "information", though. It's just a device. It would be like calling the 80's the VCR Age.

Calliope
12-20-2013, 05:41 PM
The Internet Age?

I was going to post what Spuuky said - we are becoming increasingly encouraged to create and share our own content, whether it takes the form of a short film, blog post, podcast, photo essay, etsy store or even just an "inspired tweet". On one hand that sort of access is incredibly empowering, but on the other hand there is the risk of narcissism and the need for validation taking precedent over privacy and quality control.

Madonna
12-20-2013, 05:44 PM
So, uh, guys, just wait two hundred years or so when our descendants can look back and have a better grasp on the scale of things we have done. They will do a better job of measuring when our contemporary age began and end (and what to call it). I am sure not too many people back in the day looked around and said, "Golly, having a lovely Silver Age here, but I cannot wait until we go Platinum!" It is silly to imagine you can objectively look at where you are when you are stuck in the midst of it.

If a person really wants an arbitrary "age" to live in, here are suggestions:
Digital Age - Oh god, we have gone digital with everything, haven't we? Gone are all those clunky, analog things as we move into a higher plane of existence. We do not fall to robots; we become robots.
Cyber Age - Two things, robot limbs and cybersex. Lots of statistics, probably misleading ones, say that loads of people now meet online. We just need that make out machine from The Big Bang show and we are gold.
Cloud Age - Hard drives, shmard drives. When there is a problem, where do we go? To the cloud! Also, we can pretend it is also the Crowd Age, where we fund things as a group, and depend on Yahoo! Answers/Google*
Platinum Age - Did you sign up and sign away your personal information to an ever-watching and ever-restless web of corporate spies, web crawlers, and data miners? Good, because we live in an age where people effectively own and profit off information on you. Le sad. Here, have a rewards card/stamp.

*No one cares about you, Bing.

Mirage
12-20-2013, 07:41 PM
We are probably in the information age. It is thrown at us from every angle. We can access information about almost anything from almost anywhere. We can communicate with almost anyone from almost anywhere. We rely very heavily on lots of information to make our world and society more efficient. You could perhaps even say that information win or lose wars before soldiers have been deployed. Some of these things can be said about past eras too. I mean, they had spies for surveillance and information gathering and exchange before wars back then too, but today it is a few dozen orders of magnitude greater, so I don't think it's comparable.

Of course, our age could also be referred to as something entirely different in the future, such as the fossile fuel age, or the harvest way too many resources from our planet age. Who knows?

I think that the next "age" we'll enter will probably be something like the post scarcity age, or the never have diseases and old age-age. Unless we fuck up majorly and regress back to something lower tech.

Dat Matt
12-20-2013, 09:06 PM
The industrial revolution was the age where we developed new processes such as steam engines and factories. As we are still in a constantly evolution, I would say we are in the electronic revolution. Look back 10 years and if you had a mobile phone then compare it to your current one. I had a Nokia 3310 handed down from my dad when I was 14. Comparing this to my Iphone 4 (i am nearly due an upgrade too). Worlds of difference, and things are only just going to improve. I look forward to seeing where technology is in 10 years time.

Mirage
12-20-2013, 09:57 PM
whether we're using touch phones or 1995-tech computers to access information isn't very important in this context, I think. We'd all just be at the very beginning of the "age", and in the future, most people will probably not know the difference between now and 20 years ago when it comes to what tech we used.

also a blackberry is a smart phone. Touch isn't a requirement for a phone being classified as smart, even though it might seem that way today, with only one style of phones available in the mid-high end segment.

Agent Proto
12-20-2013, 10:01 PM
Technology is just advancing at a more rapid pace now than it has been since the last known era. Despite that, most people still consider this current age the "Information Age." There isn't a better name, but I can guarantee it that the future will come up with a more appropriate name for this age when they look back to this.

Niale
12-20-2013, 11:27 PM
You all have such great answers to these questions :)
Now that is some good information.

Shlup
12-20-2013, 11:41 PM
I prefer to think of it as The Cat Gifs Age, but hopefully cat gifs will last forever so then it'd be moot.

blackmage_nuke
12-21-2013, 12:22 AM
I'd say we were in an age of information if it werent for government censorship and coverups

Rantz
12-21-2013, 01:01 AM
We're in the age of we don't know what our descendants will call it and it doesn't really matter anyway! :D

Citizen Bleys
12-21-2013, 07:28 PM
I'm a visionary.

Future generations will call this the Age of Bullshit.

Madonna
12-21-2013, 07:38 PM
I'm a visionary.

Future generations will call this the Age of Bullshit.

Bullshit.

Citizen Bleys
12-21-2013, 08:52 PM
What can I say? I'm a product of my generation.

Hollycat
12-21-2013, 08:55 PM
We live in the age of apathy and escapism.

Niale
12-22-2013, 02:15 PM
We live in the age of apathy and escapism.

Interesting :)

Citizen Bleys
12-22-2013, 03:07 PM
We live in the age of apathy and escapism.

YOU might live there, but I live in Eorzea.