Information Age & its Impact on United States Essay

number of propositions. It implies that there is more information now than ever before an indisputable claim. The concept also implies that more people spend more time producing and using more information than ever before another indisputable assertion. Beyond that, the Information Age also suggests that the role of information is more important in the economy than ever before, and that information is replacing some earlier â€Å"fuel† of the American economy (Duncan 1994). These days the primary problem for most organizations and their employees is not the shortage of data but being able to evaluate what is useful and what is not, where to find the good stuff, and then how to use it effectively (Computer Weekly 2005). During the past 25 years, the industry has changed from simple data processing techniques high profile information technology. The challenges of data quality, regulation, access and exploitation are rapidly increasing in urgency (Computer Weekly 2005). For any organization effective information management will make the difference between coping with a dreary burden or using information to gain clarity and build new opportunities. The extended theory founded on this core belief divides U. S. economic history into different eras, depending on the primary economic activity during the period (Duncan 1994). From colonial times until late in the 19th century, the American economy was agrarian. Then, roughly from the dawn of the 20th century through the end of the Second World War, it was preeminently a manufacturing economy. Industry especially heavy industry was the motor that drove the entire economic engine. After World War II, the American economy increasingly came to be dominated by its service sector. By the mid-1950s, more than one-half of all U. S. employment was devoted to providing services rather than to fabricating goods (Duncan 1994). The Pre-Information Age business office was supported by the hierarchical managerial system to keep track of employees and the work they produced (Dmytrenko 1992). Office equipment included information producing tools, such as typewriters and adding machines. Most of the equipment was simple, manual in operation, bulky, and noisy. Clerical staff primarily used this equipment, as they were the appointed information processors of the time. Early efforts to improve office efficiency used industrial engineering techniques, employing time and motion studies to standardize the work tasks of office support staff, and maximize the workflow through effective office design. Information management was categorized as an intensely manual recordkeeping process (Dmytrenko 1992). Filing systems (alpha and/or numeric), and cross-referenced indexes were the prevailing records management techniques employed, and to be on the safe side, offices maintained multiple copies of the same document for back-up purposes. These practices resulted in increasing demands for office space dedicated to files. One source of confusion is the fact that the movements from manufacturing to services, and then to information, were of a different character than in earlier transitions. In the first place, while the transition from an agricultural to a manufacturing-based economy was marked by a decline in the number of jobs in agriculture, there has been no such diminution in the number of manufacturing jobs after the shift to a service economy. Moreover, American manufacturing currently accounts for roughly the same percentage of U. S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as three decades ago (Duncan 1994). As a further complication, many argue that the services sector of the economy simply cannot be seen as a separate segment or an economic subsystem. These observers instead insist that it â€Å"serves† precisely the manufacturing sector it is supposed to have replaced and remains dependent even parasitic on manufacturing (Duncan 1994). Moreover, coming up with clear definitions and boundaries for the information industry is, on reflection, a highly complicated undertaking. The Pre-Information Age home was supported by very basic home appliances. These appliances were either on or off, and the home-user manually directed the status. Outside of some minor kitchen improvements, and the advent of television, the average person saw home advancements limited to seasonal color changes, such as â€Å"avocado green† stoves (Dmytrenko 1992). Ongoing changes prevailed in the automobile industry, but slowly. Overall the era was devoid of any electronic â€Å"intelligence. † Business and the home were very separate and different worlds. The predominant orientation was that working people went to work to work, and the home was a place not to work. The telephone was the only information technology common to both the office and home.