Why Information Technology often termed as Information and Communication Technology?

IT and ICT are often used interchangeably but using these terms together have a solid context and implications. This could be regarded as a chicken and egg problem as which one of them comes first: the information or the communication? When searched over internet, there are various nice differences between IT and ICT. In this writing, I am not interested in the differences because of the same reason as these terms can be used interchangeably but why? What had happened during the evolutionary process of both Information and Communication that make these two distinct entities inseparable? It is important to note that prior to 1950’s, the two terms were largely distinctive from each other and fortunately the economics of these two sectors were also separate from one another. 

The exponential increase of well-known specie of planet earth namely “Man” gave rise to mass of information and man became incapable of handling, storing, generating, retrieving that loads of information. This information was growing rapidly. Thankfully, we live in an imperfect world full of capitalists, utilitarian, who have a never-ending desire to bring about out-of-box solutions to maximize their utility. Computer was an invention that later became innovation to tackle with the problem of data and information handling. The restless capitalists were not satiated with the excellent computer architecture of any time and their desire to have more brought them to a dynamic world where Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Inter was to say 1965 that “the number of transistors that can be placed on a silicon chip doubles every 12-18 months”. 

During the time when information was progressing with a transient phase, communication was already taking giant leaps towards more and more innovative solutions. With the advent of telegraph and telephones, and subsequent network externalities making it more beneficial for the users to join the networks giving rise to further investments and henceforth innovation. 

One way or the other, these communication solutions were fostering the information deep inside. This means that the innovations taking place in the mother “communication” were soon to transform the daughter “information”. The devices in the switches and transmissions equipment of telephone networks could also revamp the computers. From relays to vacuum tubes to transistors, computer started its journey from mainframes to supercomputers to desktops to laptops to iPhone and what not? It was the magical transistors that were originally invented by Bell Laboratories and AT&T; for Telephone Company that transformed the information part completely. Hence, from 1960’s, the segregated terms, Information and Communication were used along. Later, with the advent and adoption of Internet from 1990’s, the two terms becomes further integrated.