Technology - Technological Changes the

Technology - Technological Changes THE COMPUTER CHIP and SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION The United States underwent a profound social change between the late 19th and early 20th centuries attributable to the industrial revolution and the corresponding shift from a primarily agrarian economy to one fueled by industrialization and the labor management concepts pioneered by visionaries like Henry Ford (Nevins & Commager 1992). By the last decade of the 20th century, America was already on the verge of another technological revolution made possible by the myriad applications of the silicon- based computer chip.

Computer technology has already resulted in tremendous changes in business administration, communications, education, and even in the social lives and purchasing patterns of the average American (Evans 2004). In many respects, the computer revolution is still in its infancy (Kaku 1997). According to many, the extent to which continued increase in computer chip processing power at their current and projected rates of development will change society dwarfs even the changes they have already inspired, making the computer chip is the most important technological development of all time.

The Evolution of Modern Computers: The first computer processors were developed during World War II in connection with the top-secret Manhattan Project dedicated to developing the first nuclear fission weapon at Los Alamos, New Mexico. At the time, processing power was extremely limited, data required manual input on punch cards, and a functioning computer relied on tremendous relays of thousands of vacuum tubes that required entire rooms to housed a single computer (Evans 2004).

Even by the time NASA achieved success in the Lunar Landing program initiated less than a decade earlier by President John F. Kennedy, the computers used to accomplish the missions possessed significantly less processing power than a standard modern home personal computer. By the time that integrated circuits replaced vacuum tubes and the silicon-based computer chip microprocessors were introduced, Moore's law predicted a rate of increased computing capacity that already seemed poised to revolutionize virtually every aspect of modern life (Kaku 1997).

The Significance of Computer Technology in American Society: Until the beginning of the last century of the 20th century, professional businesses, high-levels of government, and research institutions accounted for the vast majority of computer use in the U.S. Within less than a decade, computer technology had become common in the American home and virtually every conceivable modern business relied on computer technology for basic business functions and communications (Evans 2004).

By the turn of the 21st century, the continued reduction in the size of computers and their simultaneous increase in processing power had fundamentally changed the way Americans communicate, as well as the way we receive news about the world. The Internet provided a means of instantaneous, real-time communication that completely changed the way that Americans socialize, as well as the way we shop, monitor our bank.