information age

American  

noun

(sometimes initial capital letters)

1. a period beginning about 1975 and characterized by the gathering and almost instantaneous transmission of vast amounts of information and by the rise of information-based industries.

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information age British  

noun

1. a time when large amounts of information are widely available to many people, largely through computer technology

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Etymology

Origin of information age

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

The new information age didn’t stop the market built on margin loans from crashing down in October 1929, six weeks after the Dow’s high.

From Barron's • Apr. 15, 2026

"We live in the information age, yet we store our knowledge in media that are astonishingly short-lived," says Alexander Kirnbauer.

From Science Daily • Mar. 29, 2026

Ofcom ultimately dropped that probe, but it fined the firm about £1m for failing to respond accurately to its requests for information age measures.

From BBC • Mar. 23, 2026

In a cluttered information age, where attention is a prized and scarce commodity, Nuzzi and Lizza—with their perfectly counterpoised surnames—have somehow broken through.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 6, 2025

Trained as an electrical engineer, in the 1920s he had invented a machine known as a differential analyzer: an analog computer whose digital offspring would dominate the information age.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik