The Meaning Of "Information"

“Information, n., now runs 9,400 words, the length of a novella. It is a sort of masterpiece — an adventure in cultural history. A century ago “information” did not have much resonance. It was a nothing word. ‘An item of training; an instruction.’ Now (as people have been saying for fifty years) we are in the Information Age. Which, by the way, the OED defines for us in its dry-as-chili-powder prose: ‘the era in which the retrieval, management, and transmission of information, esp. by using computer technology, is a principal (commercial) activity.’”