ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Information history

Okay, so let's think about the history of information like a storybook.

Once upon a time, people communicated with each other by talking face-to-face or by leaving messages on walls or in rocks. This was before there were any written languages or alphabets.

Later on, people developed ways to write things down using symbols and pictures. They drew things like animals, plants, and people, and these pictures started to represent words and ideas.

Then, people came up with systems to create whole words and sentences using letters of an alphabet. These letters combined to create many different words, and people could write down their thoughts and ideas in long, detailed stories.

After this, people began inventing machines to help them store and communicate information more quickly. First, there were printing presses that could create lots of copies of a printed book or document. Then, there were telegraphs that could send messages quickly over long distances. Later on, there were telephones that let people talk to each other even if they were far apart.

As time went on, new technologies made it possible to store and share enormous amounts of information in digital form. Computers and the internet let people access information from all over the world, and even share their own information with others.

So, in short, the history of information is a story of how people found new and better ways to record, store, and share their thoughts, ideas, and knowledge with each other. And it all started with simple drawings and scribbles on rocks and walls!