Irin P.

Foorungsriroj 10D

The Impacts of the Industrial and Digital Revolution

Revolutions have shaped the way the world operates in todays society. According to the Oxford Dictionary, Revolutions are a change in society and social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence. There have been two significant revolutions which have been, by the very definition, revolutionary. These two revolutions are the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) and the Digital Revolution, which started around the 1980s and is still ongoing today. These revolutions have significantly changed the way the world operates and communicates. There numerous similarities and differences between these two revolutions, although there is a great debate between which revolution has caused more impactnegative and positivetowards society and the world. This paper intends to explore, compare and contrast both the revolutions, which will help determine which one of the two revolutions have caused a bigger impact on the world. The Industrial Revolution began in the 1750s in Great Britain. Later, it expanded into Western Europe and the United States. Although the Industrial Revolution impacted every aspect of human life, the introduction of using machines to mass produce products instead of manual labor to create custom products is perhaps the most impactful part of the Industrial Revolution. Textile manufacturing, mining and steam engines are a few industries that were significantly impacted by the revolution. Inventions in machinery such as the Spinning Jenny, which was used in the textile industry to spin thread 8 times faster than when spun by hand, changed the way textile was produced. It was also during the Industrial Revolution when the use to steam power developed significantly. Thomas Newcomen, an Englishman, played a significant role in the development of steam power by inventing the Newcomen Steam Engine. The Newcomen Steam Engine was the first machine was the first machine to convert steam into energy, and was used widely throughout England and eventually Europe to pump water out of mines to convert into energy. Transportation also improved vastly during Industrial Revolution, with the invention of steam ships which travelled much faster than the wooden ships did. Communication during the Industrial Revolution also excelled, with the invention of the telegraph. Although the Industrial Revolution has many positives, one negative is the harsh treatment of workers in factories, particularly children. As it was the first time in human history people started working in factories instead of their own homes, regulations were made and they were controlled a lot more than they were before. Children were forced to work in factories, slotting their hands into small parts of dangerous machines. Education was deemed as less important than working in a factory, as parents did not see while their child would need to get an education when they could work and help out the family. Countless amounts of people who were from countries colonized by England were forced to come over to work for the factories and had to leave their homes and loved ones. It was also then when there was a major shift from people moving from rural parts of the country to cities to find jobs. All in all, the Industrial Revolution was a very influential time period in our history which has shaped the way the world works today. The Digital Revolution first began in the 1980s and is still currently ongoing today. The Digital Revolution began with increased usage of the computer. The 1990s, however, was a major

Irin P. Foorungsriroj 10D technological breakthrough in the Digital revolution with the creation of the World Wide Web, invented by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. The invention of the Internet made it significantly easier for people around the world to communicate. This eventually also led to online shopping, which is a way of selling and directly buying goods over the Internet. According to the Internet Retailer, Amazon.com is the number one online retailer in the world. In 2006, a survey was conducted and it was found that over 75% of households in the US have purchased a product over the Internet. Another technological breakthrough from the Digital Revolution is social media. Social media is a way of communicating through the internet and is now a major part of everyday life for most people. Businesses now rely on social media and websites such as Twitter to market their products. Social media is used in many different ways, from businesses using websites such as Twitter to promote for products to politicians using Facebook to campaign. As of October 2012, there are 6 billion cell phone subscriptions and 2.4 billion Internet users (International Telecommunications Union). This represents telephones and the internet being a vital part of how the world is today. Like the Industrial Revolution, working conditions are still tough for people working in factories. Now, there are safety nets surround most factories in China to ensure that their employees cannot commit suicide. In some factory jobs, workers are not allowed to speak to each other or sit down. However, the outlook of education has improved since the Industrial Revolution. It is now a United Nations Human Right for children to be able to seek education and attend schools, and although many kids are still unable to be educated, the ratio of students attending school now are higher than it was during the Industrial Revolution. The Digital Revolution has yet to come to an end, and with the pace everything is developing at, it is incredibly exciting thinking about what lies ahead for future generations. Although there is a significant time gap between the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Revolution, there are a lot of similarities. The most significant similarity between the two revolutions is that they have made life much easier for many people. The invention of machines during the Industrial Revolution have proved to be vital and created a foundation for most of the machines used in the world today. Many machines that are used today are improvements of machines from before which began in the Industrial Revolution. The Digital Revolution has also made lives much easier for people as it is now extraordinarily easy to communicate with others from across the world. Both revolutions have also had major technological breakthroughs when it comes to how businesses are run. With the similarities come differences. Perhaps the most significant difference between the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Revolution is how businesses are run. The Industrial Revolution saw the beginning of people going to stores to buy products that were already made using machines. The Digital Revolution was the beginning of online retailing, where customers can buy products online and have it sent straight to their home in a matter of days. Transportation and communication are also other notable differences between the Industrial and Digital Revolution. In conclusion, both the revolutions have had major technological breakthroughs which have made life easier for people. It is a big debate between which revolution has caused a bigger impact to the world, and although the Digital Revolution is still ongoing and technology is developing rapidly and at an extremely exciting rate, all the ideas and fundamentals we follow today would not be here without the ideas developed during the Industrial Revolution. The same thing could be said about ideas developed prior to the Industrial Revolution, but the Industrial Revolution completely changed the way the world worked. Most of the ideas we follow today are improvements and developments

Irin P. Foorungsriroj 10D of ideas which were founded in the Industrial Revolution, such as railway transportation and the concept of machines production. Although the Digital Revolution have had its own revolutionary breakthroughs, such as the invention of the World Wide Web, all those would not be possible without the inventions created during the Industrial Revolution. Only time will tell which revolution ends up being more impactful than the other. Bibliography
Demery, Paul. "75% of U.S. Online Households Have Purchased Products over the Web." Internet Retailer. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. <http://www.internetretailer.com/2006/10/20/75-of-u-s-onlinehouseholds-have-purchased-products-over-the-w>. "Digital Revolution." Techopedias. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. <http://www.techopedia.com/definition/23371/digital-revolution>. "How Many People Own a Cell Phone?" SunZu. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. <http://www.sunzu.com/articles/how-many-people-own-a-cell-phone-181256/>. "Industrial Revolution - Free PowerPoint Presentation." Student Handouts. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. <http://www.studenthandouts.com/1batch/Handouts-101/10.07.Industrial-RevolutionPowerPoint.htm>.