Before television and computers, our most powerful communication tool was language. However, the supremacy of language has been challenged by the introduction of images— powerful, realistic, moving images—into our everyday communication. The advent of television and computing in the twentieth century marked a new period in communication technology, the Information Age. The marriage of words and images offered by television, together with the interactive power of the computer, has profoundly affected the nature of our society.
In its short life of half a century, the computer has revolutionized the way we communicate. In the workplace, businesses rely on computers for communication and for performing routine tasks such as record keeping, accounting, and inventory. Computing has spawned new forms of media, such as the worldwide network of millions of computers called the Internet. By the mid-1990s, the general public was using the Internet for education, entertainment, and business, making it the fastest-growing medium today.