Signs of the information age. The Information Age and Its Challenges
In the last ten years, due to the total spread of the Internet, it has become much easier for us to access the necessary information.
What’s there – songs, films, rare recordings – everything that collectors used to look for for years is now available “with one click”. Comfortable? Undoubtedly. But the information age has brought with it a number of difficulties.
First of all, it is information overload. Huge streams of various data pour into us from news, social networks, and mailings. We are being overwhelmed by a giant information wave. Without thinking, we read, watch, listen. We sometimes absorb information that is completely unnecessary to us. What's wrong with that? Let's get a look.
Our brain has a certain ability to perceive, analyze and store information. Memory is responsible for the last function. Memory capacity is not measured in megabytes, but it does have a certain limit.
By filling our brains with unnecessary information, we leave no room for truly important data. There is a feeling that you have forgotten how to remember - it is so difficult to read specialized and applied literature, it is so difficult to remember numbers in reports, diagnostic algorithms, names and surnames of employees. But in fact, your memory is simply filled with “husk”.
There are many sources of “husk”, it’s not just the Internet. Numerous talk shows that discuss problems that you don’t seem to care about. News and gossip from the world of show business.
A separate evil is the news feed on social networks. Other people's photographs, quotes, announcements of losses and sales, funny videos about cats and funny reviews of these videos - the poor brain involuntarily clings to all this abundance of data, especially since everything is presented in the most digestible form - bright, understandable, with pictures. It is much easier to read, watch and remember than the dry text of reports, instructions, reports and textbooks.
Information overload lurks everywhere. Digital photos and videos – you can take hundreds and thousands of them. There is no longer the need to sit over each frame in a darkened room to print it. I transferred two hundred photos from the camera to the computer - and that’s it! And there is no need to store cassettes and records on special shelves - any track can be downloaded, and now our audio libraries “swell” to several gigabytes. And now our computer’s memory is also full to capacity.
How to deal with this? And is it necessary to fight this?
It is necessary if you feel that your “memory” is being filled with the wrong things. If you have difficulty understanding and remembering useful information.
There are two types of techniques. Universal and special.
In this article we will talk about universal ones. Why are they named like that? Because they work always and everywhere, with any type of information. I will share with you a few tips that I myself use in everyday life and at work.
1. Determine your range of interests.
Don't read or watch everything to kill time. For example, I completely gave up watching TV several years ago. It immediately freed up a lot of time and “shelves” in my head :)
2.
Don't waste your time thinking and analysis "unnecessary information".
If you are not interested in politics, then you don’t need to rack your brains over UN sanctions against Syria.
3. Organize your time.
We can all get distracted and carried away. A diary will help you plan your day so you don’t forget or miss anything. Write down the most important tasks and try to complete them before the end of the day. If it doesn’t work out, no big deal – reschedule it for another day.
Studies have shown that 80% of online correspondence is empty chatter and gossip. Scientifically, it’s a flood. I try to set aside exactly an hour in the morning for this. Then I simply switch off from everything and get on with my business.
5. Prioritize information and learn to focus your attention on it.
For example, at the moment you don’t know how to create and develop your own business, but things aren’t going smoothly in your family either. Think for a moment about what is most important at this time in your life. Have you determined? And now, for a month or two, study information only on this issue, without being distracted by others.
6. Structure your data.
Arrange books and CDs on shelves, and sort files on your computer into folders. By the way, it also helps with the previous point. For example, you decided to solve family problems first, but suddenly you came across interesting and important information about business. Copy and place in the appropriate folder. Return to this information in a month.
7. Avoid clutter and clutter on the computer and in the apartment - this leads to chaos in thoughts.
These simple tips will help you avoid information junk and focus on what is important. Good luck!
Always useful information!
” describes a remarkable transformation of human consciousness that occurred around the 10th century AD. It was then that the era of silent reading began. Before this, people read exclusively out loud: today it seems crazy to us, but before it was commonplace.
When Augustine Aurelius came to his teacher Ambrose in 384 and saw him reading silently, he was stunned. Silent reading has become a discovery for people, says Alberto Mangel. He's writing:
The reader was finally able to establish an unlimited connection with the book and the words. There is no need to waste time on pronunciation. Words now existed in the inner space: abandoned or barely begun, fully realized or only half spoken, they had already been felt by the thoughts of the reader, tested for new meanings and compared with other concepts.
Silently equals freeing your mind: you can now reflect, remember, question and compare. Cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf calls this “the secret gift of thinking time.” When the "reading brain" becomes capable of automatically processing symbols, the "thinking brain" (or "I") moves beyond the letters to develop itself and the cultural field in which it resides.
The Internet will destroy us all
Thousands of years later, a new era for reading had arrived, and critical researchers seriously feared that this ability of the mind was in danger. The Internet is filled with information, and social media distracts us, threatening to suppress our inner ability to read. Journalist Nicholas Carr calls this shoaling, referring to the constant rushing from one randomly read fact to another. He says that the endless fascination threatens our very existence.
One of the biggest dangers we face is the automation of our minds and the fact that we have given control of our thoughts and memories to an electronic system. This is the slow erosion of our humanity and humanity in general.
There is no doubt that digital technologies challenge and create additional challenges for our reading minds. But if we look at this issue from the point of view of history, we can say: the problem looks a little different. Reading from digital media is a double-edged sword, not an unambiguous evil.
If this reading is “bad,” then the Web will turn us into mindlessly clicking creatures, endlessly scanning the news feed with our eyes. If this reading is of high quality, then it provides enormous potential for expanding and developing the space of contemplation - the same one that appeared when we learned to read without moving our lips.
Invention of the wheel
Skeptics like to say that the Internet has made our minds lascivious. But it seems we have always been like this.
Fear of technology is nothing new. In the 5th century BC, Socrates was concerned that writing weakens human memory and destroys the ability to write. Marianne Wolf believes the opposite has happened. By reading what was written, a person was able to learn new skills and expand his capabilities. The visual cortex has created networks of cells that can recognize letters almost instantly.
The process became even more effective after connecting the phonological and semantic areas of the cortex to these networks. Thanks to this, other parts of the brain were freed from the load, which were now busy putting the read signs into sentences, stories and ideas about the world. We may not remember verbatim lines from the Iliad, but we are able to recall the general meaning and draw a conclusion about what ancient man was like and what his descendants are like.
The Internet may be making our minds wander. But it seems that we have always been like this: a quick glance at the history of the development of books and reading only confirms this.
Today, when we read, our eyes do not move strictly along the line. We rather jump through the text in small jumps and take short breaks. Has it always been this way?
From the invention of papyrus in the 3000s BC until about 300 AD, most written documents were scrolls. They had to be unfolded with one hand, folding the read text with the other. Very linear, isn't it?
Then books appeared, the main advantage of which was the ability to jump from one place to another, from chapter to chapter (the content section appeared in the first centuries of our era). Thus, we were able to move from reading the text to interpretation, and then to bookmarks.
nautil.usIn the era of printing, nonlinear reading found support in a kind of analogue of the Internet of the 16th century - the book wheel. It was invented by the Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli in 1588. The round table allowed the reader to hold many open books on one surface and switch from one text to another simply by turning the tabletop.
Unfortunately, the book wheel was a rarity in European libraries. However, it made it possible to understand: continuous - from the very beginning to the very end of the book - is not necessary.
There is nothing new under the sun
The quality of modern media poses problems of a certain order to the reading mind. Quantity information becomes an even more complex issue. But all this is not new. Readers have already encountered similar problems. Gutenberg printed his Bible in 1455, and by 1500 more than 27,000 book titles were published, totaling up to 10 million copies. The flow of printed texts created a reading public and changed the way how exactly people read.
German historian Rolf Engelsing argues that the reading revolution occurred at the end of the 18th century. Until this moment, the typical European reader owned several books: the Bible, an almanac, perhaps the works of a favorite writer - and reread them again and again, deeply imprinting them on his own consciousness.
In the 18th century, Europeans began to read all types of texts once, and then moved on to the next material. From this flood of printed texts we got the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the American and French Revolutions.
Paper or screen?
Studies have shown that people who read text from a screen remember and reproduce it worse than those who read text from paper. However, research conducted in 2011 by Rakefet Ackerman and Morris Goldsmith suggests that the problem may be that people have too high expectations that they simply cannot meet.
Scientists have noticed that paper is best suited for thoughtful reading and learning. The screen is simply ideal for viewing small texts: news, messages, letters, notes. When students were asked to read text on a screen, they did it faster than those who read from paper. But they didn’t read it properly and understood the material worse.
I wonder if if students were asked to read from a screen as slowly as if it were paper, would the results change? The work of German educator Johannes Naumann tells us about this. The scientist asked high school students to find certain information on the Internet. Those who regularly used the Internet for learning, that is, expected to find complex texts and texts there, coped with the task better than those who mainly wrote letters and sat in chat rooms on the Internet.
Some writers are already using the power of digital media to tell their stories and convey information in new ways. One of these new forms was called hypertext in the 90s: text is divided into units that are connected by links and form a tree structure.
Technically, the Internet itself is also hypertext, but most often this term is used in relation to individual works with a system of links within.
The effects of hypertext on the reading brain have, as you might expect, received a fair amount of scientific attention. In 2005, psychologists Diana DeStefano and Jo-Anne Lefevre analyzed 38 studies of hypertexts. Their goal was to evaluate the cognitive load that hypertexts create.
Scientists have concluded: it is really difficult for a person to wade through the text in search of links, evaluate each of them and choose the right one. Carr used this result as confirmation of his own idea: the Internet is making us dumber.
In fact, the conclusions of De Stefano and Lefebvre cannot be interpreted so unambiguously. In 1996, Michael Wenger and David Payne conducted a study that confirms that the load when reading hypertext is not much greater than in the case of linear text. Both the first and second scientific works indicate that hypertext is perceived and remembered better.
In addition, interaction with hypertext brings pleasure and inspiration - a non-obvious, but important conclusion.
In 2008, Tal Yarkoni, Nicole Speer, and Jeffrey Zacks conducted a study in which they had subjects read two texts while they monitored their brain activity using functional MRI. One of the texts simply described the day of an ordinary boy. In another, the sentences were mixed.
Here is an example of such a story:
MRI helped to draw the following conclusions... A person has certain ideas about how events usually develop. But as soon as he encounters a text where the sentences are jumbled and the plot line looks strange, he has to abandon his usual train of thought. This makes it much more difficult to reproduce such text. On the other hand, text with jumbled sentences looks much more interesting than usual.
Understanding is important. But it is equally important to enjoy what you read. Marianne Wolf notes: the limbic system of the brain, which is responsible for emotions, comes into play immediately after we learn and silently. It generates feelings of pleasure, disgust, horror and excitement, forcing you to return to the story or novel again and again. Those who create modern digital novels know this.
The Age of the Digital Novel
It's no coincidence that many of the best digital texts take the form of games, in which the reader encounters an imaginary world, solving puzzles and problems that are often incredibly complex.
These texts, in essence, attack our consciousness, challenge it. By taking it, we get great pleasure, which is difficult to replace with anything.
A new generation of digital writers is basing their work on video games, taking full advantage of their interactive capabilities. The novel PRY is a complete demonstration of how digital media can play with human consciousness. It's exciting.
The story of a man who returned home after the Gulf War unfolds before us as a tape of reflections on the past and present, presented in the form of photographs, videos and audio recordings. PRY uses an interface that allows you to become completely immersed in the novel. It's no surprise that when you read (or play) PRY, your brain isn't quite ready for the experience. You are encouraged to feel the immediacy of what is happening, to interact with what is written, to use your body to not only turn the page, but also to continue the development of the plot. At first you will feel nervous: what if you do something wrong? suddenly miss something? However, later you will feel how your brain adapts to a new, albeit unusual, text.
Of course, the Internet is not a PRY novel. But the history of reading demonstrates that what we are experiencing now may not be the final version of events. It's more like an intermediate state, a compressed spring.
pixabay.com The faster and more inattentive we are, the more likely we are to become mindless clickers and jumpers from text to text. Maybe you should try to immerse yourself in the text? It can be so nice to read the sentences.
We live in an era of digital culture. We must be vigilant, discerning, savvy. But at the same time, it is important not to lose the ability to be surprised, delighted and enjoy. We need to love ourselves. Then digital reading will help expand the already huge inner world of a person.
Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics
ABSTRACT ON PHILOSOPHY
The emergence of the information age
Completed:
Graduate student
Dementyev Sergey Pavlovich
Caf. APVT, Krivulya G.F.
Kharkov 2011
Introduction 4
Society's transition to the information age 5
Information technology 9
Information networks 11
Social theory of space 13
Today M. Castells is considered one of the most authoritative sociologists in the world and he rightfully belongs to the international academic elite. M. Castells cannot be considered only as an “armchair scientist-researcher”; as a consultant, he participates in the work of large international organizations, being one of the agents of the world processes described in his book.
M. Castells was born in 1942 in Spain, for some time he was a participant in the anti-Franco movement. For political reasons, at the age of twenty, Castells emigrated to France and settled in Paris. There he studied sociology with Alain Touraine and then taught urban sociology at the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Sociales (Paris) for 12 years. Since 1979, M. Castells has been a professor at the University of California (Berkeley). At the same time, he worked as director of the Institute of Sociology of New Technologies at the Autonomous University of Madrid (1988-1994). Also, at various times, as a visiting professor, M. Castells lectured at the universities of Montreal, Mexico City, Caracas, Geneva, Tokyo, Boston, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Amsterdam, etc.
Professional and personal circumstances closely connect M. Castells with Russia: since 1984, he has repeatedly visited the USSR and then Russia. In the spring of 1992, he led a group of experts invited by the Government of the Russian Federation. Even M. Castells' wife is from Russia, and this also partly explains his interest and involvement in Russian problems.
As a theorist, M. Castells began by using the Marxist approach to urbanization issues (“The Urban Question” (1977) (French edition - 1972)). This was followed by the books “The City and the Grassroots” (1983), “The Informational City” (1989), “The Collapses of Soviet Communism: a View from the Information Society” (1995) and others. Gradually, the subject of M. Castells’ scientific interest became the global processes occurring in the modern world under the influence of the explosive development of all types of information technologies. The result of this interest was the fundamental study “Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture” Vol. I-III. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996-1998.
This monograph is considered his main work. It has been translated into 12 languages. Not everyone agrees with Castells' views on modernity, but even "critics applaud his vision." Today, this is the only, unparalleled, large-scale attempt to describe and structure our civilization.
Castells' theory of the information society is based primarily on economic aspects. At the same time, the basis of the new economy is information produced by the media and supported by certain information technologies. It is worth noting that in his works the scientist predicted changes in the structure and activities of the media.
The theory of the information society developed by Castells, in contrast to the concept of the global/information economy, includes consideration of cultural/historical specifics. The author emphasizes that one of the key features of the information society is a specific form of social organization in which, thanks to new technological conditions emerging in a given historical period, the generation, processing and transmission of information have become fundamental sources of productivity and power. In this society, the social and technological forms of a given social organization permeate all spheres of activity, from the dominant ones (in the economic system) to the objects and customs of everyday life.
Another key feature of the information society is the network logic of its basic structure, which explains the title of Volume I of the monograph, The Rise of Network Society. Castells emphasizes that he refers to the social structure of the information age as a network society because “it is created by networks of production, power and experience that form a culture of virtuality in global flows crossing time and space... Not all social dimensions and institutions follow the logic of the network society , just as industrial societies over time included numerous pre-industrial forms of human existence. But all information age societies are indeed permeated—with varying intensities—by the ubiquitous logic of the network society, whose dynamic expansion gradually absorbs and subjugates pre-existing social forms.”
The new information society (like any other new society), according to Castells, arises “when (and if) there is a structural reorganization in the relations of production, relations of power and relations of experience. These transformations lead to equally significant modifications of the social forms of space and time and to the emergence of a new culture.” The author examines in detail changes in everyday culture, city life, the nature of time, and world politics.
According to the works of Castells, work in the information society becomes flexible and individualized. The emphasis in this case shifts towards the employee, and not towards the employer.
The data system cited by Castells confirms that production in developed economies relies on educated people aged 25-40. Up to a third or more of human resources are practically unnecessary. He believes that the consequence of this accelerating trend is likely to be not mass unemployment, but extreme flexibility, job mobility, individualization of work and, finally, a highly segmented social structure of the labor market.
M. Castells observes and analyzes the process of transition of human society into the information age. This transition is based on the revolution in information technology, which in the 1970s laid the foundation for a new technological system that spread throughout the world. Along with changes in material technology, the social and economic structure has undergone revolutionary changes: relatively rigid and vertically oriented institutions are replaced by flexible and horizontally oriented networks through which power and the exchange of resources are exercised. For M. Castells, the formation of international business and cultural networks and the development of information technology are inextricably linked and interdependent phenomena. All spheres of life, from the geopolitics of large national states to the everyday life of ordinary people, are changing, finding themselves placed in the information space and global networks.
The revolution in information technology is “the starting point in analyzing the complexities of the formation of a new economy, society and culture.” M. Castells is not afraid of accusations of technological determinism and immediately emphasizes “technology is society, and society cannot be understood or described without its technological tools.” However, M. Castells does not accept the point of view of orthodox Marxism, and says that technology does not at all determine historical evolution and social changes. According to M. Castells, technology is a resource potential for the development of society, providing different options for social change. At the same time, society is largely free to make decisions about its path of movement. To support his position regarding the role of technology in social change, the author of the trilogy turns to the history of the development of the computer industry in the United States. According to Castells, the invention of the personal computer and the subsequent massification of users were not strictly predetermined by technological laws: the alternative to “personal computer” was the concentration of control over the development of computer technology in the hands of large corporations (IBM) and the government. With this path of development of society, totalitarian tendencies of universal surveillance are gradually increasing, the power capabilities of the government, armed with computer technology, are expanding, and society is increasingly beginning to move towards the model described by J. Orwell in the book “1984” and the dystopian film by J.L. Godard "Al Faville" (1965). At the turn of the 50s and 60s, the danger of monopolization of technology was quite real, but external reasons (emerging social movements, the flourishing of counterculture, deep liberal and democratic traditions) gradually reduced it to a minimum.
The example of the history of the computer industry demonstrates only a partial dependence of changes in society on technological development, i.e. production. M. Castells assigns the same important place to experience, considered as the impact of human subjects on themselves, through the changing relationship between their biological and cultural identities. “Experience is built around the endless search for the satisfaction of human needs and desires.” Along with production and experience, the third important factor influencing the organization of human activity is power, which is understood by the theorist quite in the Weberian spirit - imposing the will of some subjects on others using symbolic or physical violence. In an emerging society, the factor of production, which means the development of computer technology, has a dominant influence on both power relations and culture.
Information technologies raise the importance of knowledge and information flows to hitherto unknown heights. However, the increasing role of knowledge was once noted by D. Bell, A. Touraine, E. Toffler and other theorists of post-industrial society. M. Castells makes a significant distinction between the well-known concepts of the “information society” and his own concept of the “informational society”. The concepts of the information society emphasize the decisive role of information in society. According to M. Castells, information and the exchange of information have accompanied the development of civilization throughout human history and have been of critical importance in all societies. At the same time, the emerging "information society" is being constructed in such a way that "the generation, processing and transmission of information have become fundamental sources of productivity and power." One of the key features of the information society is the network logic of its basic structure. In addition, the information society is developing against the backdrop of accelerating and contradictory processes of globalization, processes affecting all points of the globe, involving or excluding from the general social, symbolic and economic exchange.
Using extensive theoretical, statistical, and empirical material, based on his own experience and observations, appealing to the opinions of scientists and recognized experts in their fields, M. Castells proposes “some elements of a cross-cultural research theory of economics and society in the information age, specifically speaking about the emergence of social structure "
Information technologies determine the picture of the present and will even more determine the picture of the future. In this regard, M. Castells attaches particular importance to the study of how these technologies developed in the post-war period. In information technology, M. Castells includes “a set of technologies in microelectronics, the creation of computer technology (machines and software), telecommunications/broadcasting and the optical-electronic industry.” Thus, the core of the transformations that the modern world is experiencing is associated with information processing and communication technologies. M. Castells offers a sociological description and understanding of the main points in the history of the formation of this kind of technology, paying much attention to the role of Silicon Valley in the development of the computer industry. The spirit of free enterprise, university intellectualism, and government contracts made Silicon Valley a leader in the computer industry.
Based on the work of a number of theorists, M. Castells outlines the boundaries of the information technology paradigm, which has several main features. Firstly, information within the framework of the proposed paradigm is the raw material of technology and, therefore, first of all, technology affects information, but not vice versa. Secondly, the effects of new technologies cover all types of human activity. Thirdly, information technology initiates the network logic of changes in the social system. Fourth, the information technology paradigm is based on flexibility, where the ability to reconfigure becomes a “decisive feature in society.” Fifthly, an important characteristic of the information technology paradigm is the convergence of specific technologies in a highly integrated system, when, for example, microelectronics, telecommunications, optical electronics and computers are integrated into information systems. Taken together, the characteristics of the information technology paradigm are the foundation of the information society.
In the 60s, the famous theorist Marshall McLuhan put forward the concept of the transition of modern society from the “Gutenberg Galaxy” to the “McLuhan Galaxy”. Typography made the printed symbol, the printed word, the basic unit of information exchange in Western civilization. The invention of photography, cinema, and video makes the visual image a key unit of the new cultural era. The apotheosis of the “McLuhan Galaxy” can be considered the widespread spread of television, which changed not only the environment of mass communications, but the habits and lifestyle of a significant part of humanity. “The success of television is a consequence of the basic instinct of a lazy audience.” Of course, listening to radio broadcasts and watching television programs in no way excludes other activities. It becomes an ever-present background, the fabric of our lives. Thus, according to M. Castells, a new culture is emerging, “the culture of real virtuality.” Real virtuality is a system in which reality itself (i.e. the material/symbolic existence of people) is completely captured and immersed in virtual images, in a fictional world where external representations are not just on the screen, but themselves become experiences.
Along with television, the development of electronic computer networks (Minitel, Internet) is becoming a factor that can be considered formative for the culture of virtual reality. The Internet, like many other modern phenomena, can rightfully be considered a creation of the sixties. The history of the Internet shows how the development of computer technology, government interests, and the independent spirit of universities were brought into play to create a new symbolic cosmos. M. Castells meticulously explores the stages of the formation of the Internet, i.e. its transformation from a local computer network for military purposes into a new global reality of the information age. However, M. Castells does not at all believe that the Internet “works” only for globalization. He believes that “computer communication is not a universal means of communication and will not be so in the foreseeable future.” "New electronic media do not separate from traditional cultures - they absorb them." At the same time, there is a wide social and cultural differentiation leading to the formation of specific virtual communities. Members of these communities may be separated in physical space, but in virtual space they can be as traditional as communities in small towns.
M. Castells has long been perceived as a sociologist studying the problems of urbanization and the social structure of the modern city. The theme of the city was not forgotten in this book.
M. Castells uses network theory to analyze changes occurring in the urban environment of the information society. Network structures are reproduced both at the intracity level and at the level of relations between global cities. The network structure does not mean the disintegration of the intra-city hierarchy: information and power nodes appear in global cities, which close the main flows of information, financial resources and become points for making management decisions. Resource flows run between these nodes, and the nodes themselves are in constant competition with each other. Global nodes are concentrated in metropolitan areas, which “are very large agglomerations of people.” The defining feature of megacities is that they concentrate administrative, production and management functions on the entire planet. Megacities fully reflect the contradictions of the “global-local” dichotomy: involved in global business and cultural networks, they exclude local populations from them, which become functionally useless. M. Castells believes that the marginalization of local communities occurs as a result of the economic, political and cultural expansion of megacities. M. Castells considers megacities as large-scale centers of “global dynamism”, cultural and political innovation and connecting points of all types of global networks. Thus, M. Castells gives a clear description of the processes occurring in the structure of cities during the transition to the information age.
The social theory of space develops from a combination of three factors: physical space, social space and time. According to M. Castells, “space is the expression of society” and also “space is crystallized time.” From a social point of view, which the author of the book adheres to, “space is the material support of social practices of time division.” Society, that is, social space, is built around the flow of capital, information, technology, organizational interaction, images, sounds and symbols. By flows, M. Castells understands “purposeful, repeating, programmed sequences of exchanges and interactions between physically separated positions that occupy social factors in the economic, political and symbolic structures of society.” Thus, “the space of flows is the material organization of social practices in divided time, operating through flows.” The space of flows is seen by M. Castells in the form of three layers of material support:
The first layer consists of a chain of electronic pulses concentrated in microelectronics, telecommunications, computer processing, broadcasting systems, and high-speed transport.
The second layer consists of nodes and communication centers that ensure smooth interaction between elements integrated into global electronic networks.
The third layer refers to the spatial organization of the dominant managerial elites performing management functions.
In the global-local dichotomy, elites refer to those who are interested in developing a global power space that will allow them to control unorganized localized peoples. The elites of the information society can be considered as a spatially limited network subculture in which a lifestyle is formed that allows them to unify their own symbolic environment around the world. The layers of material support that take shape in the space of flows form the infrastructure of the society that M. Castells calls informational.
The information society is changing the perception of time. Let us recall that one of the most important signs of the beginning of modernization of Western society was a change in attitude towards time. In the Middle Ages, time was event-based, when there was a time of day, a time of night, a time of holidays and a time of everyday life. The invention of the clock mechanism and parallel social changes made the quantitative measurement of time necessary. At the same time, the emerging bourgeoisie had a need for “a more accurate measurement of time, on which their profit depends.” This is how time ends up in the hands of those in power. At the same time, time begins to be secularized and rationalized. But this was not yet the time of the industrial age. It was still close to the "natural" biological rhythm. The bourgeois era finally turned time into an economic resource, and the technological changes accompanying it subordinated time to the mechanical rhythm of working machines.
conclusions
The need for a specifically social spatiotemporal generalization is most fully expressed in the concept of the network/information society by M. Castells. In it, society, identified with social structure, is reduced to the three most general components: space, time, technology. The space of the new society is built on the flows of capital, information, technology, and organizational interactions that form a network. The space of resource flows is the dominant spatial form of the network society, which is built on top of the physical space of places. The scientific and technological revolution has brought about changes in modern society, the consequences of which we will feel for several years. The emergence of computer networks, according to many researchers, became the starting point in the formation of not only a new type of consciousness, but also new types of communication affecting all spheres of human life. Information, which has replaced the main resource of industrial society, is transmitted and distributed freely, from one network user to another, allowing the network to exist as a single organism. According to researcher Kevin Kelly, in the future, computers connected into a single global network will form a single machine capable of producing and distributing information independently. Each network user will become a “transistor” of this machine. Of course, now such an opinion looks utopian, but the pace of development of information technology makes us think about the possibility of such a development of events. At the turn of the century, Manuel Castells justified the appearance of such a machine in his scientific works, giving the new era a name and laying the foundations for the scientific understanding of the new era. Traditionally, the scientific community reacts to current events occurring in society after the last wave of their discussion has subsided. This is partly due to the need for an objective and balanced approach to modern realities. However, some scientists, thanks to their unique scientific intuition, grasp the main trends, discarding momentary impulses and opinions. It seems to me that Manuel Castells can be considered precisely such a scientist. Having timely realized the emerging changes in the structure of society, he was able to model the impact of these changes on the future life of society. In addition, the scientist outlined trends that would subsequently become decisive in the life of certain areas of human effort. Given the massive and chaotic nature of the dissemination and exchange of information in the information society, traditional media, according to Castells, will become a thing of the past. According to one of the scientist’s followers, in the future, each participant in the global computer network will be engaged in the production of information. It is possible that in the next 10 years the balance will shift from information consumption to its production. However, the peculiarity of information on the network is that its producer is also its consumer. This idea has been reflected in many scientific papers. The theory of the information society, presented by Manuel Castells, deserves special attention from both scientists and the entire scientific community.
Literature
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2. Le Goff J. Another Middle Ages: Time, work and culture of the West. Ekaterinburg: Ural Publishing House. University, 2000
3. Teplits T.K. Everything for everyone. Mass culture and modern man. M.: INION RAS, 1996.
4. Nazarov M.M. Mass communication in the modern world: methodology of analysis and research practice. M.: URSS, 1999.
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6. Galbraith J. New industrial society. M.: Progress, 1969.
Features and characteristics of the information age. Safety. Types of security
In this section we will try to give a brief description of the modern information era, because whether we like it or not, it is the era that calls and obeys the people corresponding to it, since the problem of ensuring information security is directly related to the capabilities of a person, an organization, a state and all of humanity, as information system capable of learning.
Signs of the Information Age
Theoretically, there are many ways to characterize both a person and individual countries, as well as all of humanity. These are: (for a person) education, health status, age, income, etc., (for a public association) the level of industrial production, the presence of minerals, population, the level of science and culture, religiosity, etc. Each of these characteristics is further detailed, and the final result, integrated into massive statistical collections, already includes the most detailed “ultimate truths,” right down to the amount of meat consumed per capita. And the volume of this knowledge, which is undoubtedly useful for solving specific practical problems, is growing and growing.
But if you see in humanity and in a person, first of all, an information system capable of learning, then there will not be so many basic characteristics. For any information system, the main features have always been and will be those characteristics of the environment that are determined by the volume and speed of transmission, processing, learning, and perception of information within the spatial and temporal distribution area of information systems of the corresponding class.
Let us introduce a number of basic definitions.
· receiving input data;
· processing this data and/or changing one’s own internal state (internal connections/relationships);
· issuing a result or changing one’s external state (external connections/relationships).
An information system whose elements function in accordance with rules generated by the same mutually consistent set of axioms will be called simple information system.
information system, which contains elements that function in accordance with the rules generated by sets of axioms that are different from each other, we will call complex information system.
It is accepted that among the rules for the functioning of various elements there may be mutually contradictory rules and goals. In this case, the violation of protective barriers in the interaction of elements of a complex system with each other leads to the reprogramming of these elements and/or their destruction. As a result, on the one hand, the more functionally diverse the elements of the system, the more potential functionality the system itself has, and on the other hand, the more often constant changes in the state of the system, occurring mainly under the influence of input data, can lead to interaction within the system of mutually exclusive or elements “interfering” with each other, which in certain cases causes the death of the system or the self-generation of programs dangerous to it.
Violation of protective barriers in the interaction of elements of a complex system with each other leads to the reprogramming of these elements and/or their destruction.
From the above it follows that information "battlefield" are, first of all, protocols for the information and logical interface of elements of a complex system, means and technologies for their practical implementation.
The protocol of information and logical interaction for elements of social space is embodied in the natural language of every nation. The use of one or another linguistic subset of a language largely determines the information capabilities of various population groups.
The main means of adjusting information and logical interaction protocols for social space today have become the media.
The protocol for information and logical interaction for elements of cybernetic space is reflected in many programming languages and network protocols. The main means of unauthorized modification of these protocols are software bookmarks, computer viruses, etc. means and technologies for influencing telecommunications channels.
Depending on what changes occur in the internal state of information systems, it is proposed to carry out the following classification:
1) class A - systems with an unchanged internal state after processing the input message;
2) class B - systems with a changing internal state.
In turn, in class B the following subclasses can be distinguished:
subclass 1 - systems with an unchanged processing algorithm, but with changing data (databases, individual arrays, etc.), which are used in the process of processing input information;
subclass 2 - systems with an adaptive processing algorithm, i.e. the algorithm is adjusted to the application conditions; adjustment is carried out by either changing the control coefficients or automatically selecting an algorithm from a set of equivalent algorithms;
subclass 3 - systems with a self-modifying goal and, accordingly, with a completely self-modifying algorithm that goes beyond the set of equivalent algorithms.
Figure 1 shows examples of information systems from various classes. However, it is advisable to perceive Fig. 1 with a certain degree of convention. In particular, the old classic telegraph apparatus is largely a mechanical system that processes input data and returns to its original state upon completion of processing (class A), but is equipped with a processor with memory and an algorithm for restoring corrupted data, supporting several levels of information protocols. logical interaction, it, together with similar devices, is already moving into the category of data transmission systems (class B).
Rice. No. 1. Classification of information systems
The same can be said about automated information retrieval systems. Depending on the implementation, they can be classified as systems of either the first or second subclass. Control systems also differ not only in their functionality and potential, but also in their methods of implementation.
The main idea of Figure 1 is to show the stages of development of information systems. It is curious that the niche that Nature jumped over in its evolution - subclass 2, was filled with the help of man, as they say: “ A holy place is never empty».
To characterize each stage of the existence of an information system, including humanity as a whole, first of all, it is advisable to answer the following questions:
1. How has the distribution area of information systems of this class and the dominant ways of their interaction with each other changed?
2. What is the dominant type of weapon, protection and influence on one’s own kind and the surrounding nature? Each stage of the “life” of an information system can be characterized by the type of weapon used (physical force, cold steel, firearms, chemical, biological, nuclear, etc.) as a method of protection against external and internal dangers.
3. What is the dominant way of managing the system, and therefore delegating power in it?
4. What are the dominant mechanisms of knowledge transfer, both in space (within an area) and in time (within an area)?
5. What are the dominant threats brought to life by changes in the information sphere?
The answers to the above questions will be a list of the most significant features of the modern stage of human life, which corresponds to the intuitively accepted name “information age” or, in other terminology, an integral model that determines the behavior of information systems capable of learning.
The main change in the world of information subjects was that between man and man there appeared a technical means responsible for the production, transmission, processing and presentation of messages. And it is this, the main change, that determines not only the behavior of individual people, but also all geopolitical processes in the world. What will this lead to or has it already led to?
Just as any other creatures create a certain environment around themselves with the products of their vital activity, for example, worms loosen the soil, thereby changing the properties of the soil, in the same way information creatures create a specific information environment around themselves. The life activity of people, as information beings, leads to changes in the environment in which they develop, transmit and perceive messages. Means for storing messages, transmitting and producing messages appear. Accordingly, people appear to serve these processes. Thus, environmental change is placed on an industrial basis. And then the time inevitably comes when the general change in the environment begins to proceed faster than the change in its inhabitants to conform to this very environment. That’s when the inhabitants either die out or change in such a way as to accelerate their movement as much as possible.
Moreover, each environment has specific characteristics that make it possible to assess the changes occurring in relation to the subjects of this environment. Let's list them:
1. The scheme of information and knowledge transfer over the past decades has undergone major changes from the “person - person” scheme to the “person - technical means - person” scheme.
2. The processes of production, distribution, implementation of information and evaluation of the results of information impact have become industrial in nature, they are put on a conveyor belt. There has been a transition from the “person - information product” scheme to the “person - technical means - information product” scheme.
3. Modern information weapons are significantly superior to any other type of weapon in terms of effectiveness/cost.
4. Delegation of power in countries defining the new world order is carried out on the basis of information technology.
5. Within the distribution area of humanity, the transfer of information using technical means (reprogramming one’s own kind using modern information technologies) is carried out much faster than the transfer of genetic information (programming one’s descendants using biological mechanisms). Moreover, the volume and time of information transfer within the distribution area of humanity for the bulk of the elite, which determines the functioning of the governance system of countries and peoples, no longer depends on the location in space, on the distance between them.
The introduction of a technical tool into the information exchange scheme built on the “person-to-person” principle has led to the fact that the possibilities for reprogramming their own kind for individuals and groups possessing these means have increased sharply. With the help of appropriate equipment and technologies, it becomes possible to effectively manipulate both individual and public consciousness in real time.
However, usually, any breakthrough into new unexplored areas leads to the emergence of new threats.
Thus, industrial production and the resulting accumulation of population in cities allowed, as never before, infections such as influenza, which had not previously posed a serious threat, to influence the population.
The discoverers of new lands simultaneously discovered new sexually transmitted diseases.
The total destruction of the American Indians and some other tribes by the common flu virus is a real danger arising only from mutual contact between races. Some optimists believe that the threat posed by an increase in the intensity of contacts between representatives of different races can be easily removed with the help of medical vaccinations. But for some reason they don’t want to think about the fact that expanding the range of mutual protection through the use of medical vaccinations also has its limits. According to one hypothesis, the reason for the emergence of AIDS is precisely that the real boundaries of the spectrum of mutual protection, outlined by the capabilities of a particular race, due to the total use of vaccinations and the expansion of mutual contacts, were destroyed precisely at the basic level.
The main threats to humanity are practically determined by what a person records as his achievements, or rather, they are directly related to the characteristics of the corresponding era formulated above. And if we mentally continue the general trend associated with the improvement of technical means, which have confidently taken their place in the interaction scheme “man - technical means - person”, we will see that the spread of infection to the technical component should have been inevitable, which, in general, And it happened - computer viruses appeared.
At the next stage, the stage of integration of technical means and technologies, it would be quite logical to observe the use directly against people and humanity of all those techniques and attacks that were previously developed in the technical field, in the same INTERNET environment filled with information systems.
On the INTERNET, the most popular attack is the buffer overflow attack. The essence of this attack is that more data is transferred to the attacked computer than it can accommodate in the memory allocated for this or has time to process in real time. As a result, either the transferred data overwrites some useful programs, or the performance of the selected victim sharply decreases. The biological and social analogue of “buffer overflow” is overpopulation; informational – total adherence to stereotypes propagated by the media.
As a result, thanks to the improvement of technology and technology, it is during the information age that a person and any society, to the extent that they can be considered as information self-learning systems, become available for a “buffer overflow” attack. It is clear that the consequences of such an attack cannot be harmless.
Thus, it is quite possible to add one more threat to the previously mentioned threats - the type or type of infection that determines the most dangerous epidemics. The information age creates all the necessary conditions for the emergence of epidemics at the level of the psyche of individuals and decision-making systems of public entities. The psyche cannot remain healthy if the most important organ of human feeling is blocked in it, the development of which is possible only at the level of direct human contacts. This explains the sheer number of lawyers and psychotherapists in the countries of the information society.
As a result, we have the following “ladder” of epidemic development:
Epidemics at the level of organisms;
Epidemics at the level of organisms' defense systems;
Epidemics at the level of management and decision-making systems.
But the information age has also brought with it purely specific threats inherent to it. Today it is not so important to protect information, there is a lot of it in the public domain, everyone has it and it is almost the same. Today, on the contrary, you need to be able to defend yourself from what is dangerous for you. An important feature of the flow of modern information processes is that we are talking about spending resources not on protecting information from the enemy, but, on the contrary, on promoting the “necessary” information to the enemy (where the enemy is the whole world, understood as a potential buyer and as a potential source income), to form the ordered picture of the world. To be convinced of what has been said, it is enough to compare the costs of protecting information and the costs of advertising. They are not comparable. Today, the advertising market has become much larger only due to the almost instantaneous turnover of funds. And the lock protecting the computer was still hanging, rusting. You don’t have to pay for locks and fences every day, and, besides, nothing new can appear behind the door they protect. In the modern world, everything new brings income to its owners and dies before it is realized as a secret in need of protection.
In the last millennium, the “farther” the attacker was from his victim, the more resources he needed to deliver the message to the target. Very often it was distance that protected from lies. Today, the concept of “distance” for transmitted messages has lost its meaning.
Chasing the future has become a game called the Artificial Maze. The player gets the impression that there are more roads than ever before. But this is just a performance. Today, the task of the information aggressor is precisely to provide as much additional (redundant, unverified, false) information as possible, thereby reducing the uncertainty in the behavior of the enemy, the buyer, or his own citizens.
Thus, after the subject has read the messages prepared for him, after the subject has believed them and formed certain knowledge in himself, then this knowledge, this model of the world becomes for him a controlling compass, a guiding star that leads him along. . But the model is different. There are models that justify constant repentance and humility, and there are models that force us to fight the aggressor.
Humanity as a whole, any state and individual do only what they know how to do and think about what they know - this is the law of behavior of a self-learning information system. What knowledge do individual nations and humanity as a whole have today? What is humanity learning today? Having answered these questions, we will come to the answer to another question, the question - what awaits us?
The current structure of the human world can be schematically depicted as follows:
Rice. No. 2. Scheme of information management of modern humanity
The circle, remarkable for its symmetry, includes a complex of technical means along with a small number of personnel serving them. It is clear that this complex of technical means must belong to someone. Again, it is clear that collecting, producing, processing, transferring and presenting this complex of technical means will not be just anything, but what is desired by the owner of the complex.
Since at the present stage of development all of humanity is included in the orbit of this complex, thanks to communications, it is already possible to build a system of managing humanity on its basis. This explains the widespread use of election technologies in determining the power resource. The winner is the one whose spectacles emerge victorious in the competition for human, and therefore natural, resources. Whoever owns people owns their property.
Having given a brief description of the modern era, let us move on to consider the concept of “security”.
Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia
The increasing role of information as a resource has led to the official recognition by the leading states of the world of a new type of war - information wars. Information warfare), the goal of which is not to physically destroy the enemy, but, using information (information operations, psychological operations), to gain and consolidate a competitive advantage over him, that is, to make the enemy dependent in terms of his own information self-sufficiency, to force him to use such information resources that would first turn served their own interests (state or corporation).
Issues and trends
These changes not only brought new challenges to humanity associated with the directly proportional dependence of the intensity of informatization and urbanization with the growing number of diseases associated with physical inactivity and constant stress of urban residents (total “obesity” of residents of developed countries), but also made it more possible than ever to implement the provisions of the ancient thinkers of humanity - first of all, the introduction of the positive aspects of such concepts as the noosphere and coevolution.
One of the problems is choosing the right information. Waves of spam and flood (not only on the Internet, but also in the media) sometimes make obtaining truly necessary, useful information a difficult task. And the widespread use of computer technology poses a number of new challenges to the information security of individual organizations, individuals and entire states (see competitive intelligence, industrial espionage, cyberwar).
The use of network technologies (based on information) made possible not only the total pooling of the resources of all mankind, but also terrorist attacks unprecedented in the history of mankind (9/11, the Nord-Ost tragedy, the London Underground bombings). Terrorism has become a serious problem.
see also
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Excerpt characterizing the Information Age
The conversation continued throughout the evening, focusing mainly on political news. At the end of the evening, he became especially animated when it came to the awards bestowed by the sovereign.“After all, last year NN received a snuff box with a portrait,” said l “homme a l” esprit profond, [a man of deep intelligence,] “why can’t SS receive the same award?”
“Je vous demande pardon, une tabatiere avec le portrait de l"Empereur est une recompense, mais point une distinction,” said the diplomat, un cadeau plutot. [Sorry, a snuff box with a portrait of the Emperor is a reward, not a distinction; rather a gift.]
– Il y eu plutot des antecedents, je vous citerai Schwarzenberg. [There were examples - Schwarzenberg.]
“C"est impossible, [This is impossible," the other objected.
- Pari. Le grand cordon, c"est different... [The tape is a different matter...]
When everyone got up to leave, Helen, who had said very little all evening, again turned to Boris with a request and a gentle, significant order that he should be with her on Tuesday.
“I really need this,” she said with a smile, looking back at Anna Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the sad smile that accompanied her words when speaking about her high patroness, confirmed Helen’s desire. It seemed that that evening, from some words spoken by Boris about the Prussian army, Helen suddenly discovered the need to see him. She seemed to promise him that when he arrived on Tuesday, she would explain this need to him.
Arriving on Tuesday evening at Helen's magnificent salon, Boris did not receive a clear explanation of why he needed to come. There were other guests, the countess spoke little to him, and only saying goodbye, when he kissed her hand, she, with a strange lack of a smile, unexpectedly, in a whisper, said to him: Venez demain diner... le soir. Il faut que vous veniez… Venez. [Come for dinner tomorrow... in the evening. I need you to come... Come.]
On this visit to St. Petersburg, Boris became a close person in the house of Countess Bezukhova.
The war was flaring up, and its theater was approaching the Russian borders. Curses against the enemy of the human race, Bonaparte, were heard everywhere; Warriors and recruits gathered in the villages, and contradictory news came from the theater of war, false as always and therefore interpreted differently.
The life of old Prince Bolkonsky, Prince Andrei and Princess Marya has changed in many ways since 1805.
In 1806, the old prince was appointed one of the eight commanders-in-chief of the militia, then appointed throughout Russia. The old prince, despite his senile weakness, which became especially noticeable during the period of time when he considered his son killed, did not consider himself entitled to refuse the position to which he had been appointed by the sovereign himself, and this newly discovered activity excited and strengthened him. He was constantly traveling around the three provinces entrusted to him; He was pedantic in his duties, strict to the point of cruelty with his subordinates, and he himself went down to the smallest details of the matter. Princess Marya had already stopped taking mathematical lessons from her father, and only in the mornings, accompanied by her nurse, with little Prince Nikolai (as his grandfather called him), entered her father’s study when he was at home. Baby Prince Nikolai lived with his wet nurse and nanny Savishna in the half of the late princess, and Princess Marya spent most of the day in the nursery, replacing, as best she could, a mother to her little nephew. M lle Bourienne, too, seemed to be passionately in love with the boy, and Princess Marya, often depriving herself, yielded to her friend the pleasure of nursing the little angel (as she called her nephew) and playing with him.
At the altar of the Lysogorsk church there was a chapel over the grave of the little princess, and in the chapel a marble monument brought from Italy was erected, depicting an angel spreading his wings and preparing to ascend to heaven. The angel's upper lip was slightly raised, as if he was about to smile, and one day Prince Andrei and Princess Marya, leaving the chapel, admitted to each other that it was strange, the face of this angel reminded them of the face of a deceased woman. But what was even stranger, and what Prince Andrei did not tell his sister, was that in the expression that the artist accidentally gave to the face of the angel, Prince Andrei read the same words of meek reproach that he then read on the face of his dead wife: “Oh, why did you do this to me?..."
Soon after the return of Prince Andrei, the old prince separated his son and gave him Bogucharovo, a large estate located 40 miles from Bald Mountains. Partly because of the difficult memories associated with Bald Mountains, partly because Prince Andrei did not always feel able to bear his father’s character, and partly because he needed solitude, Prince Andrei took advantage of Bogucharov, built there and spent most of his time there. time.
Prince Andrei, after the Austerlitz campaign, firmly decided never to serve in military service again; and when the war began, and everyone had to serve, he, in order to get rid of active service, accepted a position under his father in collecting the militia. The old prince and his son seemed to change roles after the 1805 campaign. The old prince, excited by the activity, expected all the best from the real campaign; Prince Andrei, on the contrary, not participating in the war and secretly regretting it in his soul, saw only one bad thing.
On February 26, 1807, the old prince left for the district. Prince Andrei, as for the most part during his father’s absences, remained in Bald Mountains. Little Nikolushka had been unwell for the 4th day. The coachmen who drove the old prince returned from the city and brought papers and letters to Prince Andrei.
The valet with letters, not finding the young prince in his office, went to Princess Marya’s half; but he wasn’t there either. The valet was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.
“Please, your Excellency, Petrusha has come with the papers,” said one of the nanny’s girls, turning to Prince Andrei, who was sitting on a small children’s chair and with trembling hands, frowning, dripping medicine from a glass into a glass half filled with water.
- What's happened? - he said angrily, and carelessly shaking his hand, he poured an extra amount of drops from the glass into the glass. He threw the medicine out of the glass onto the floor and asked for water again. The girl handed it to him.
In the room there was a crib, two chests, two armchairs, a table and a children's table and chair, the one on which Prince Andrei was sitting. The windows were curtained, and one candle was burning on the table, covered with a bound book of music, so that the light would not fall on the crib.
“My friend,” Princess Marya said, turning to her brother from the crib where she stood, “it’s better to wait... after...
“Oh, do me a favor, you keep talking nonsense, you’ve been waiting for everything - so you’ve waited,” said Prince Andrei in an embittered whisper, apparently wanting to prick his sister.
“My friend, it’s better not to wake him up, he fell asleep,” the princess said in a pleading voice.
Prince Andrei stood up and, on tiptoe, approached the crib with a glass.
– Or definitely not to wake you up? – he said hesitantly.
“As you wish, that’s right... I think... as you wish,” said Princess Marya, apparently timid and ashamed that her opinion had triumphed. She pointed out to her brother the girl who was calling him in a whisper.
It was the second night that they both did not sleep, caring for the boy who was burning in the heat. All these days, not trusting their home doctor and waiting for the one for whom they had been sent to the city, they took this or that remedy. Exhausted by insomnia and anxious, they dumped their grief on each other, reproached each other and quarreled.
“Petrusha with papers from daddy,” the girl whispered. - Prince Andrei came out.
