The growth of machine use in human society has contributed to the creation of two very different social upheavals: the Industrial Revolution, which occurred between the late 1700s and the early 1900s, and the Computer Revolution, which has been expanding since the 1950s and '60s. Both of these time periods created major shifts in how lives were led and social ties formed, although in ways unique to both revolutions.
Replacement of Labor
One large impact that both the Computer Revolution and the Industrial Revolution had on society is the replacement of labor previously required for certain tasks, increasing efficiency for a wide array of functions. However, the types of labor being replaced differ between these historic periods. Steam-powered machines made the Industrial Revolution possible by making manual labor, especially in the manufacturing industries, much more efficient. The machines of the Computer Revolution, by contrast, increase the efficiency of the mental labor needed to compute equations, store information and access that stored info.
Using the Tools
The ease of using the tools creating the revolution is another marked difference between these periods. The Industrial Revolution was powered by machinery that did not require a college education to operate properly. In the Computer Revolution, the people best able to write programming code and develop software that impacts daily lives, such as social media applications, require years of schooling, usually graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field. As the use of computers grows throughout the Computer Revolution, computer literacy becomes much more important to function and thrive in the resulting society.
Ethics
Major changes in personal ethics have stem from both the Industrial Revolution as well as the Computer Revolution. Philosophers from the Industrial Revolution period, which ran concurrent to the Enlightenment period, developed ideas such as the social contract and utilitarianism, reflecting the need to come to rational decisions about the major life changes posed by this revolution. In comparison, the Computer Revolution destroys the geographical boundaries to thought and expression, requiring the development of a more global ethic. Also, whereas the ethics of machine use during the Industrial Revolution was mostly confined to the workplace, the computer pervades all areas of life and thus can contribute to changing ethical ideals at home, play and while socializing.
Similarities
There are also a number of similarities between the Computer Revolution and the Industrial Revolution beyond their revolutionary nature. Both periods relied heavily on the constant advance of technology in order to make tasks more efficient. The advances of both revolutions also necessitated the creation of even more tools to be able to support the increases of economic production, whether those increases were in the manufacturing or the services sector.
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