I have read with interest a few articles on the internet that try to describe our era as the "information age." As best I can tell, this "age" started in the mid 1840's (yes, you read that right) and continues on today. It overlaps with the "computer age", "space age", "nuclear age", "atomic age" "industrial age", and so on. Some of these ages never end, so I wonder why they bother labeling them at all.

It's important, at least to historians, what "age" we are in because they often go to it as a point of reference, and an explanation of why our civilization moved in different trends. For instance, the atomic age covers the start of the "cold war", when people were watchful of communists, and everyone knew that CD stood for Civil Defense. If you lived in that time, you probably knew where the fallout shelter was near you, or at least where you would go when the nukes started falling. You possibly had cans of soup or boxes of powdered milk in your basement, so you were ready. You can imagine all this uneasiness led to a lot of tension and stress and depression. Many books and movies from the time left you feeling patriotic, or anti-Russian, who were often the "bad guys."

It's hard to imagine what that was like, speaking for myself. I was born at the start of the space age, but by the time I actually realized what was going on around me we'd moved into the beginning of the computer age. . While I and my classmates did practice air raid drills in lower elementary school (leftovers from the atomic age) by the time I got to high school the concern was for good math teachers (there being a shortage, since so many had gone into government employ to put a man on the moon, satellites in space, etc and it just paid better than teaching!) which was due to the space age really winding up. So even though I was born before a man walked on the moon, and even though I can remember what a big big deal it was when the Eagle had landed, it still seems to me in part of my mind that we've simply always been in space and always will be.

I wonder about this a bit because of my parents. They were born in the industrial age, which unfortunately also includes The Great Depression. If you don't know what that is, then you are either badly informed or too young to know much of anything. There have been many depressions over the centuries, but only one that had most of the world in a dire economic grip like that. People often think they can't have kids because the timing isn't right financially, imagine having children when the WORLD isn't ready for them. But my grandparents held out hope for a better future. Sure, things were bad when my parents were born, but my grandparents knew things would turn around again. They knew, ultimately, God was in control.

Which made me realize, of course, that economic times come and go. Bad and good presidents get elected over time. Governments oppress, freedom reigns, famines strike, bountiful harvests come in. No matter what, there always seems to be some people who just live their lives in service to God, knowing this life will end one day and then things really start to get interesting.

But I also note this. In all the prior ages, people didn't turn to the internet to solve all their problems. When they had things that needed talked out, usually they met with someone face to face. People read books that helped them sort out their lives, often times the bible. Now, it's easy to be impersonal and hid behind a computer screen and an "alias." There's a lot more unhelpful things being said than I can remember in all my short time alive, and some of the boldest lies are accepted as truths. Maybe nowadays is more properly labeled the "misinformation age."

Randy