The 4 Social Revolutions Due to Technology - Essay Example

ation – this was the first major social change since prehistoric times when man was able to change his way of living from a hunting-and-gathering existence (nomadic) to one of a fixed lifestyle (permanent settlements). The big change occurred when people gathered enough information about plants and animals which allowed man to domesticate in form of cultivation of edible plants, fruits and vegetables; previously wild animals were also domesticated by herding instead of hunting them down. Societies became pastoral by the maintenance of the herds in pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and most importantly, horses which allowed man to travel much farther.

The discovery of how to cultivate plants properly and how to propagate them in backyards ensured a stability and reliability of food supplies. This vital knowledge soon diffused to all other human populations because horticulture became the primary means of subsistence by the three factors which made it a necessity for survival: environmental changes (global warming) between 15,000 to 8,000 years ago, continued human population growth intensified the competition for a limited and shrinking resource base (land) which forced people to look for alternative ways and finally, accumulated knowledge about plants and animals enabled early humans to increase food supplies on the same plot of land by cultural exchanges on information about new technologies.

Agriculture – this is vastly different from mere horticulture because in agriculture, land is utilized far more extensively and effectively through the use of the plow; the plow allows for a land to be churned much deeper while horticulture merely touches the few inches of the topsoil. In other words, the invention of the plow made the land more productive because the soil is often. Industrialization – this societal change was far more pervasive and longer-lasting due to the tremendous increase in productivity in various areas of human endeavor.

The invention of the steam engine allowed for mechanization of agriculture, mining, transportation and manufacturing that for the first time enabled man to achieve far greater things than mere reliance on his physical strength alone. It first started in England but quickly spread to other nations because of adoption of new technology to keep up with increased competition. It was a major turning point in human history, an inflection point defined as a critical event that fundamentally changed the way people think and act, affecting all aspects of life.

The wider diffusion of this new technology in many countries allowed for economic surplus that could support much larger populations; a disruptive type of change that altered society from being feudal-agricultural to an industrial one. Information revolution – the advent of the microchip ushered humankind from being the mechanical society it once had to the digital age of information. Massive advances in technology became possible with the use of the microchip, from land travel to space travel.

Computerization became a way of life for majority of people; a self-reinforcing process (Weinstein, 2010, p. 358) in how diffusion or spread of information and knowledge was attained. Communications became much easier and faster (almost instantaneous) and knowledge can be easily multiplied. The rise of the digital age and the Internet was made possible by the microchip in which society is altered in vast ways: in how we shop, buy, bank, read books, get the news and in social networks today.