What does it mean to be living in the information age

An era is defined as a long and distinct period of history. a system of chronology dating from a particular event so to speak.

Basically an era is a specific point in time and what makes each era particular is what it was about each one of those time had something specific that distinguished them differently from any other times.

And by this definition, it could be looked through out history to tell what made each era specific and been able to be distinguishable from any other time in history.

And by the way, here is an interesting fact:

The seventh largest platform in the world in terms of user has the same amount of users as the number of people living in extreme poverty around the world

You may thing that this does not have anything to do with the context of the story but you will pretty much find out later that they are kind of related. So what do we really mean by "the information age".

This is how google defines it:

The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century, characterized by a rapid epochal shift from the traditional industry established by the Industrial Revolution to an economy primarily based upon information technology.

So basically it is the shift from the industrial economy to the digital economy.

I know that lots of people will be familiar with the terms developing and developed countries.

Which of course could also be noted as rich and poor country. But the truth is that this is not completely the accurate truth.

The reality is that there are actually three types. The developed countries, developing countries and underdeveloped countries.

Like previously mentioned most people are only familiar with the terms developing and developed countries but another important thing that they may not be familiar too much with are the three types of economic description.

Which are agricultural, industrial and service. This three source are what are used to classified an economy from under developed to developed.

What should be known here is that an under developed country will have the majority of its economy dependent on agriculture.

a developing country will have the majority of its economy dependent on industries and a fully developed country will have the majority of its economy dependent on services like information technology.

A country with an agriculture-based economy will have the majority of its population working in agriculture and rural farming.

A country with a industry-based economy will have the majority of its population working in industrial work such as manufacturing etc.

and a country with a service-based economy will have the majority of its economy working in professional service like finance or IT.

Every economy that develops, will make transition. First, the country has the majority of its population working in farming.

And at this point, we say that the country is under developed. Thus this creates a huge availability for low labor mostly used for factory work.

So the country's economy transition from a country with the majority of its population working in farming, to the majority of its population working in industry.

At this point we say that the country in industrializing. Since huge factories and industries become to surge in the country due to foreign interest wanting to exploit the low labor cost for the manufacturing and production of goods.

And thus we say the country is a developing country since it is developing into a wealthier nation because the citizens of the country are getting wealthier by moving from working in farming to more advance work in factories.

Then, since the citizens of the country are now wealthier and aren't poor and under developed anymore, they now look forward to more advanced jobs.

At this point, the country is fully industrialized, So it then transition to a service-based economy. At this point we say that the country is developed.

And there is no better example of looking at this china. before the late 20th century, the country was mostly comprise of rural farmers and the majority of the countries population worked in that area.

However after 1978, when the country decide to open to the rest of the world, the combination of a low labor cost, a huge population and loose regulation the country became a attractive place for foreign interest.

And as a result the country experience a huge manufacturing boom.

Which meant that the population where getting wealthier and today the country's economy when from industrial with the vast majority of the population working in manufacturing to been a service based economy.

because today the countries economy is 51% service-based.

So a develop country will always have the majority of its economy on been in the advance service sector.

A developing one will have the majority of its economy in the industrial sector and an under develop country will have the majority of its economy working in the agricultural sector.

So this then this brings us to the main point. Which is how should you work in each sector. Because we are only talking about information here, the only society that will be focused on here are developed ones.

As google describes it, a rapid epochal shift from the traditional industry established by the Industrial Revolution to an economy primarily based upon information technology.

Which means that the way people are suppose to thrive and benefit from the economy today, differs from how someone will have done the same in the traditional economy.

And so how did someone exceed in the traditional economy? they did so by working in sectors such as engineering and manufacturing. And this was something that required physical presence to be enabled.

Because the teaching of those were not wide spread an available to all. And so in order to be an economically successful person in that traditional economy you need to reach this point

I am sure that some will start to spot the difference with the current time.

Since the first thing to notice is that the current economy is shifting toward the gig economy.

in the US about 34% of american workers are in some way participating to the gig economy.

in the UK the size of the gig economy will double every three years.

In addition, most people not make earn a living not by getting hired but by putting out content. Even think of something like Vocal. I am sure that there people earning a living thanks to it.

This will have been something that could have not been possible before in the traditional economy.

And think of any of any other form content create like YouTube, Instagram influences, twitch etc.

Those are people earning money directly from the internet. And so what does the gig economy, video sharing platforms, Social media and the rest all have in common? They all rely on information.

In fact it isn't just new forms of earning a living that have been made available in this new economy that should be noticed. All industries today uses technology

And this is the real meaning of the term information age is that things don't function anymore by labor but by information.