Revolution

What is a revolution? Is it a simple change that happens? Or a shift in ways we do things? To many it is truly hard to contemplate what a true revolution encompasses.  However, in our current society, we have actually gone through three technological revolutions already.  In Manuel Castells' The Rise of Network Society, he depicts for audience members these three revolutions, and explains how evolutions, essentially those in the information technology realm are characterized by their pervasiveness.  That is, these revolutions are characterized most by their ability to make their way into various domains of human activity and then become the fabric by which such activity is conducted. 

In the current information revolution that we are in today, and similar to what we had previously witnessed in the two prior industrial revolutions that occurred in the world, there was what Castells' calls a set of macro-inventions that set off the development of other smaller micro-inventions.  These developments and inventions changed the workings of society.  Castells' The Rise of Network Society, he explains that "processes of production and distribution, created a flurry of new products, and shifted decisively the location of wealth and power in a planet that became suddenly within the reach of those countries and elites able to master the new technological systems."

Revolutions are a very unique aspect of human life.  As they can happen at any time upon, and onto any given society, they are a force to be reckoned with.  They alter dynamics of various aspects of human life.  We, as a society as a whole, have gone through three such revolutions, and have come out a change whole.