Northwestern University

College of Arts and Sciences

Laoag City

<The Information Age>

Report on Specific Issues in Science, Technology and Society

Neilmar P. Pasion

1ST Semester, SY 2021-2022

Introduction

The Information Age. That is what many pundits, writers, and analysts have already
labeled these concluding years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty
first century. This characterization of our time is based on the widespread proliferation of
emerging information and communication technologies and the capabilities that those
technologies provide and will provide humankind to overcome the barriers imposed on
communications by time, distance, and location and the limits and constraints inherent in
human capacities to process information and make decisions. Advocates of the concept of
the Information Age maintain that we have embarked on a journey in which information
and communications will become the dominant forces in defining and shaping human
actions, interactions, activities, and institutions. They may be right. But often, promoters
of the Information Age give little attention to significant issues and concerns that arise out
of their favorite concept. Is the Information Age truly already upon us? Just what is meant
by the Information Age? How does the information and communication revolution fit
within the broader sweep of human history, or is it indeed such a significant departure for
humankind that past history has little relevance? What are the technologies of the
information and communication revolution? What do they do and what will they do? Is it
really a revolution, and are we really entering an Information Age? Will the capabilities
of emerging information and communication technologies lead to greater connectivity
and commonality of perception, or will they result in greater isolation and fragmentation?
advances in information and communication technologies, energy and transportation
technologies, biotechnology and life sciences, agriculture and industry,
weapons technologies, and other scientific-technical fields have played important roles in
driving changes in the ways that men and women conduct their affairs. This has been true
in virtually every realm of human endeavor including business and banking, industry and
manufacturing, government policy and military affairs, international relations, education
and research, social and cultural relations, political affairs, entertainment and news, and
elsewhere.

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Discussion

Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age

by Richard O. Mason
Today in western societies more people are employed collecting, handling and distributing
information than in any other occupation. Millions of computers inhabit the earth and many
millions of miles of optical fiber, wire and air waves link people, their computers and the vast
array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly an information society,
our time an information age. The question before us now is whether the kind of society being
created is the one we want. It is a question that should especially concern those of us in the
MIS community for we are in the forefront of creating this new society.
There are many unique challenges we face in this age of information. They stem from the
nature of information itself. Information is the means through which the minds expands and
increases its capacity to achieve its goals, often as the result of an input from another mind.
Thus, information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings craft their lives and
secure dignity
Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age
by Richard O. Mason
Today in western societies more people are employed collecting, handling and distributing
information than in any other occupation. Millions of computers inhabit the earth and many
millions of miles of optical fiber, wire and air waves link people, their computers and the vast
array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly an information society,
our time an information age. The question before us now is whether the kind of society being
created is the one we want. It is a question that should especially concern those of us in the
MIS community for we are in the forefront of creating this new society.
There are many unique challenges we face in this age of information. They stem from the
nature of information itself. Information is the means through which the minds expands and
increases its capacity to achieve its goals, often as the result of an input from another mind.
Thus, information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings craft their lives and
secure dignity
Today in western societies more people are employed collecting, handling and distributing

information than in any other occupation. Millions of computers inhabit the earth and many

millions of miles of optical fiber, wire and air waves link people, their computers and the vast

array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly an information society, our

time an information age. The question before us now is whether the kind of society being created

is the one we want. It is a question that should especially concern those of us in the MIS

2
community for we are in the forefront of creating this new society. There are Positive and

Negative issue in our society, we face in this age of information. They stem from the nature of

information itself, Information is the means through which the minds expands and increases its

capacity to achieve its goals, often as the result of an input from another mind. Thus, information

forms the intellectual capital from which human beings craft their lives and secure dignity. the

building of intellectual capital is vulnerable in many ways. For example, people's intellectual

capital is impaired whenever they lose their personal information without being compensated for

it, when they are precluded access to information which is of value to them, when they have

revealed information they hold intimate, or when they find out that the information upon which

their living depends is in error. The social contract among people in the information age must deal

with these threats to human dignity. Each of us, individually and institutionally, has developed

mechanisms to either shield us from or deal with complexity and change. Sometimes these

mechanisms work too well. That is, they prevent us from sensing how much our worlds are

changing, thus robbing us of an opportunity to understand our environment and appropriately

modify old responses or develop new responses. The results are often catastrophic; we break

rather than bend. History is replete with examples of changed environments that were recognized

too late for an institution to successfully adapt. Similarly, history also has many examples of

changed environments that were recognized, but by institutions or societies that were themselves

unwilling or unable to adapt to new conditions. The Information Age is and will continue to

present us with these kinds of challenges at an alarming rate. The increasing complexity of our

environment and the actions necessary to maintain or improve our equilibrium will only serve to

make these challenges even more difficult. Successfully responding to these challenges will

require three things. First, we will need to recognize that something has changed. Second, we will

need to understand the implications of this change. Third, we will need to develop timely and

effective responses. In this case, we have an abiding interest in the survival and continuous

functioning and readiness of these organizations. We do not want to adopt a strategy that requires

failure to achieve success. Making our government institutions, and especially those entrusted

with providing for our national security, better able to effectively deal with increased complexity

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and be more responsive to changes in their environment requires, in some cases, immense

organizational change. This will not be an easy task, for organizational change will require

alterations in the very culture of these institutions. In the final analysis, altering culture means

changing behavior, and this demands providing both incentives and tools. While the rigors of the

marketplace provide incentives for business firms, firms that have succeeded have somehow

discovered the secret of passing incentives to their employees while providing them with the

knowledge and support they need to efficiently turn knowledge into action. Firms whose

organizational arrangements and processes distort incentives or fail to empower employees tend

to be less successful. Since relatively few organizations endure, some might argue that success is

more the result of the right organization with the right product at the right time than the result of

an agile

organization that has adapted to changing circumstances. However, the fact is that organizations

can adapt if conditions are right. Each of the three necessary ingredients of success recognizing a

changed situation, understanding its implications, and developing a timely and appropriate

response requires an understanding, in the case at hand, of the Information Age and how it is

affecting people

and organizations. To reiterate, then, the purpose of this volume is to stimulate thinking about

how the Information Age is changing our environment so that our national security institutions, in

turn, will be able to perform their functions well as the Information Age progresses.

Conclusion

There is little doubt that these technologies and other advances in related information and

communication technologies will expand humankind’s ability to overcome previous limitations

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on the ability to communicate. But what will be the effects of these immensely expanded abilities

to communicate and to utilize information? Will the effects of these technologies be so significant

that the much heralded "Information Age" becomes a reality? And what exactly will this

Information Age be like? How will humankind’s established ways of conducting affairs, of

undertaking interactions, and of structuring and organizing society be affected? What effects, in

turn, will our expanded abilities to communicate have on international actors, their behavior, their

structures, their roles in the world, and the international system that they together create? These

are difficult questions to answer. But it is important to try to find answers to them since those who

best answer them will be better able not only to operate in the Information Age, but will also be

better able to influence how the world will operate and how it will be shaped. stake with the

increased use of information technology is the quality of our lives should we, or our children,

survive. If we are unwise many people will suffer information bankruptcy or desolation.

Our moral imperative is clear. We must insure that information technology, and the

information it handles, are used to enhance the dignity of mankind. To achieve these goals we

must formulate a new social contract, one that insures everyone the right to fulfill his or her

own human potential.

should we, or our children,

survive. If we are unwise
many people will suffer
information bankruptcy or
desolation.
Our moral imperative is clear.
We must insure that
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information technology, and
the
information it handles, are
used to enhance the dignity of
mankind. To achieve these
goals we
must formulate a new social
contract, one that insures
everyone the right to fulfill
his or her
own human potential.
In the new social c

Referrences

6
http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Alberts_Anthology_I.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
242705009_Four_Ethical_Issues_of_the_Information_Age

References:
1. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
I., The Cancer Ward, Dial
Press, New York, New York,
1968.
2. U.S. House of
Representatives, The
Computer and Invasion of
Privacy, U.S.
Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., 1966.
References:

7
1. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
I., The Cancer Ward, Dial
Press, New York, New York,
1968.
2. U.S. House of
Representatives, The
Computer and Invasion of
Privacy, U.S.
Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., 1966.
https://www.nagb.gov/naep-frameworks/technology-and-engineering-literacy/
2014-technology-framework/toc/ch_2/society/society3.html