what is information technology

In the 1960s and 1970s, the term information technology (IT) was a little known phrase that was used by those who worked in places like banks and hospitals to describe the processes they used to store information. There was no such thing as a college degree in IT, for example. Software development and computer programming were best left to the computer scientists and mathematical engineers, due to their complicated nature.
Over the next several years, with the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s and its everyday use in the home and the workplace, the world has evolved into the information age. With the paradigm shift to computing technology and paperless workplaces, information technology has come to be a household phrase. It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information.
By the early 21st century, nearly every child in the Western world and many in other parts of the world, knew how to use a personal computer. Businesses' information technology departments have gone from using storage tapes created by a single computer operator to interconnected networks of employee workstations that store information in a server farm somewhere away from the main business site. Communication has changed from snail mail and fax to instantaneous transmission of communications through electronic mail (email).
Great technological advances have been made since the days when computers were huge pieces of equipment that were stored in big, air conditioned rooms, getting their information from punch cards. The information technology industry has turned out to be one of the biggest employers of people in western countries as the focus shifts from manufacturing to service industries. In the east, information technology has also provided a great number of jobs as well. It is a field where the barrier to entry is generally much lower than the old focus on manufacturing. In the current business environment, being proficient in computers is pretty much a necessity for those who want to compete in the workplace.