We explain what information technology is, what its characteristics and examples are. In addition, we tell you its story.
What is information technology?
Information technology, abbreviated IT or IT information technologies), and sometimes referred to in the plural as information technologies, is the name given to the use of computers and digital networks to store, transmit, and manipulate data generally in the corporate and business world. It is, in essence, another name for ICT, that is, Information and Communications Technologies, only emphasizing the storage of information, rather than its transmission and dissemination.
It is common to speak interchangeably about IT and ICT, when referring to the impact that digital networks and the world of the Internet have on the economic and professional world. Both terms are useful for thinking about the contemporary way in which information is produced and stored, which has no comparison with any other era of humanity.
In this way, information technologies cover all those implements created by humans that serve to produce, retrieve or transmit information quickly, efficiently and massively.
When we speak, therefore, of you, We refer to both hardware and software both to computer networks and personal computers, that is, to the set of technological tools intended for information management. Furthermore, as a field of study, information technology is closely linked to computing and information sciences.
History of information technology
Information has always been a very valuable resource for human beings, but never before have they been able to produce and manage it with such ease and in such large dimensions. In fact, the history of information technologies It begins with the invention of writing, around 3000 BC. c when Mesopotamian cultures invented what is thought to be the first ancient written record system, useful for keeping track of flocks, raw materials or other countable goods.
This primitive system of marking on some surface was the first known information technology, and over the centuries it evolved into the different types of writing known today. Writing became so important that it forced humanity to design new supports, more resistant, lighter and more comfortable, in which to work with it.
Paper was, for millennia, the ideal support for manual writing, done with ink or graphite, until the invention in the 15th century of the printing press, which allowed texts to be massified with an ease and speed never seen before: What took a group of monks in the Middle Ages a year to transcribe, a device could do in just a few weeks. Lithography and other ways of reproducing images on paper were later added to this invention.
The next milestone occurred in the 20th century, with the invention of typewriters and especially with the creation of the first electromagnetic media, that is, the first computers and digital systems. In the mid-20th century it became clear that the calculating machines available to date were just the beginning of what humanity could achieve in terms of information storage and processing.
In fact, The second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century witnessed an unprecedented transformation in human capabilities to produce and store data, with the emergence of new and more powerful generations of computers. Hard drives, mobile media (floppy disks, laser disks, flash drives), and computer networks maximized the amount of information that could be stored faithfully and retrieved quickly.
Hence, current times are called the “Information Age”: human beings regularly produce, store and transmit much more information than was produced, stored and reproduced in all previous eras of history.
Features of information technology
Information technology today is fundamentally characterized by:
- Immateriality. The advancement of the digital world and technologies wireless It allowed the data to rest on media far from our sight, recoverable quickly, but located in an inaccessible place. Hence the metaphor of “the cloud” to refer to the Internet: a place full of information that is everywhere, but that at the same time we cannot see or touch.
- Interconnection. Information currently flows without stopping, being transmitted from one geographic location to another in a matter of seconds, but always from one end of a network to the other. To access it we must, therefore, connect: have a device capable of connection.
- Instantaneity. The speed of data transmission today is only comparable to the speed of transmission of electrical impulses between the nerves and brains of animals.
- Omnipresence. Information is found everywhere in the contemporary world, it is produced, collected and transmitted even without us realizing it.
Examples of application of information technology
Some examples of the use of information technologies throughout history are:
- The writing at any of its levels.
- The diffusion in social networks of advertising content to thousands of potential users.
- The recording and study of stock market and financial systems (such as the stock market) through large computers dedicated to calculation.
- He digital storage from the historical archives of a newspaper or the archive of a nation.
- Recording of steps given by a person who exercises through an app on their smart cell phone.
- Purchase and sale transactions of financial assets through online banking portals.
- Storing thousands of photos on the hard drive of a person.
Types of information technology
Information technology can be organized and classified according to different criteria. For example, taking into account their main roles in society, we can distinguish between:
- IT for data processing. That which is used to solve problems of process automation, calculation and prediction of results, and everything that involves the recovery of collected information.
- management IT. That which is used to contain or distribute information and allow access to it by third parties, whether they are users or other computer systems.
- IT decision support. That which is used to support the exchange of data and decisions between one or more users and a computer system, such as the algorithm of a social network, for example, or access to a newspaper file requested by a user search.
- Expert Systems IT. That which is used to develop artificial intelligence and predictive systems (very advanced algorithms) that perform tasks impossible for the human mind and provide continuous support to different professional and everyday scientific tasks.
Continue with: Storage devices
References
- “Information technology” on Wikipedia.
- “What are information technologies?” at the European Postgraduate Center (Mexico).
- “Information technologies (IT)” (video) on Conversus TV.
- “What is information technology?” at the Maranathá Higher Studies Center (Mexico).
