英语时文阅读之Life is changing for us!.docVIP

What we have, if not need, to know to be “in” in this changing world -----Information explosion and our life pace In terms of both time and spatial dimensions, we live in a global village in an information age with many neighbors different from us in ideology, cultural backgrounds, languages, religious beliefs and ethnic origins. According to some sociologists and economists, some countries in the world have already entered into so-called “post-industrial society”, the symbols of which are the wide use of information technology as represented by digital control of our work and life arranged by computers. Most of us feel that we can’t live and work, if not smoothly, without computers to aid us. Industrialization has changed much of our world in the past and computerization has been changing our world beyond our imagination. Nobody knows if we are heading for heaven or hell and if what we have been experiencing is boon or otherwise. People tend to be fed with more and more information about almost everything around them and they have to keep up with what is going on “around” them, something that has happened thousand miles away in the other corner of the world. With the new development of information technology (cyber revolution, virtual world and digital control), we can know something the instant it happens thousand miles away via live broadcast by major mass media tycoons like CNN, Reuters, BBC, AP (the Associated Press), UPI (the United Press International), etc either by TV or through internet. Indeed, we are living in a shrinking world. Just as Daniel Bell pointed out, our sense of space and time have been altered by supersonic jet planes like Concord and jumbo jets like Boeing 747 or A 380. Because of jet lag, a person can leave Beijing at 9 am local time and arrive at London Heathrow 11 am local time or at LA (Los Angeles) at 6 early morning of the same day. In the former case, with allowance of flight time, you feel two hours late, you are in a city so remot