How Long Will The Information Age Last?

Alvin Toffler published a book in 1980, called The Third Wave, which caught the attention of the mass market as well as numerous academics. In this book, he attempted to explain the turmoil we were experiencing in the 1960's and 1970's as the third wave of change for human civilization. More specifically, he saw the evolution of human civilization as undergoing three major transformative revolutions. The first was the agricultural revolution. The second was the industrial revolution. And the third (the third wave) was a transition to a post industrial society. This post industrial society has become known as the Information Age.

I am neither a staunch supporter nor a staunch critic of Toffler's characterization. On the positive side, he provides a thought provoking characterization of the evolution of civilization. It is easy to understand and it got a lot of people thinking about what was going on. On the down side it is one of many, many possible characterizations and I always have a bit of trouble when authors include the present in their historical perspectives. That said, he did popularize, although not coin, the term Information Age.

I think that most people tend to accept the fact, free of critical reflection, that we are in the Information Age. It is not clear to me that this is true. But if it is, we can ask how long will the information age last and what will come next?

The agrarian age lasted thousands of years while the industrial age lasts only hundreds. If progress is speeding up and we can draw on the patterns of the previous ages, then the information age should last only decades. If this is the case, then something new ought to be coming along very shortly. What is it?

I don't want to fall into the same trap that I just criticized Toffler for and provide a historical perspective that includes the present and the near future. I do think, however, we can look at patterns from the past to the present and provide reasonable speculations on what might be coming next. Over the next few posts I am going to look at the evolution of computer applications from the automation of the 1960's to the social interaction technologies of 2010 and see if we can find any useful patterns.