Be on the alert about Newsweek

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32. The Information Age - Cyberspace and social media - are having an effect on

modern social and political life similar to the invention of the printing press almost 600 years ago.

In the 15th century, books became more available and affordable once they could be mass produced in people's own languages. Literacy levels went up. Public figures, from royalty to philosophers and religious leaders could publicly debate ideas through pamphlets and books. Centralized power in the royalty and nobility became more accountable to a better informed public. The centralized political power of the church in Europe fragmented.

Things were chaotic during the social, political, and economic changes. Some ideas and movements went off the rails and fizzled out. Others were more long lasting and framed the future of societies, including the notion that an informed public could govern itself, without a monarchy.

Today, the Internet and social media allow people to not only have more access to a broader range of information, but to create their own expressions of ideas in blogs, news websites, opinion pieces, and videos, and to start and spread political, social, and economic movements. Information is not limited to local regions. It is global.

Anyone can take their own videos of events and spread them around the world. You need to have discernment and critical reasoning to wade through it all, so there is some chaos and false info that get spread, just like what happened with the spread of books and pamphlets with the 15th century printing press.

We still depend to some degree on people who have the money and power to run media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, ISPs, Threads, Tik Tok, (and DU), etc. We also depend on an energy power grid to support the Internet and cell phones, but more people have a voice now than before. And communications are instantaneous. No need to wait weeks or days for news to spread.

Societies everywhere are changing and shifting due to the Information Age.