In 2006, the world produced 161 exabytes (an exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes) of digital data, according to Columbia Journalism Review. Put in perspective, that’s 3 million times the information contained in all the books ever written. By next year, the number is expected to reach 988 exabytes.
The massive explosion of information has made us all a little batty. Just ask the congressional assistants who field frantic phone calls from constituents.
“Everybody’s come unhinged,” one told me recently. “They think we’re going to hell in a handbasket. And maybe we are.”
Who knows?
The unknowableness of current circumstances, combined with a lack of trust in our institutions, may partly be to blame for our apparent info-insatiability. People sense that they need to know more in order to understand an increasingly complex world.
Wonderful.
So we have more information, and less wisdom?
i concur. i have suffered from too much choice/info for a long time. if i want or need to purchase an item or choose anything actually, i want 3-4 good options not a plethera. it makes me very flustered and i cannot concentrate. same thing with health questions; i have learned that what works for one person won’t have any effect on another. same with medical opinions; all different, no one knows anything for sure.
Good article. A book called [url=”http://www.amazon.com/Information-Anxiety-2-Hayden-Que/dp/0789724103″]Information Anxiety[/url] by Richard Saul Wurman also touches on some of the data overload issues. I read an earlier version of the book which was very helpful to me.
Not to get all “comparative religiony,†but I seem to remember a line in the Tao-Te-Ching about [i]much knowledge impeding understanding.[/i]
I guess the western equivalent is [i]“can’t see the forest for the treesâ€[/i]
Or in my world, [i]the more I know, the less I understand.[/i]
I recall a prophacy in the old testament that in the end times there would be an out pouring of knowledge.. It is amazing how that silly old socially repressive book that is so full of myths and fables keeps getting it right!
Dave B., I think you’re thinking of Daniel 12:4 – I thought of the same verse when I saw this blog entry and went and looked up the reference. I had the misfortune of being exposed to a very awful end times prophecy video series in a small group I was a part of during high school. That verse from Daniel really struck a chord, even 25 years ago as we were just entering the PC (personal computer) age.
#6, Dave B, you’re right on the bull’s eye. The activites we are seeing today are EXACTLY what was prophecied to happen in the end of the age. However, most people are blinded and don’t see it. They don’t really study their Bibles (that old socially repressive book) as you to quaintly referred to it. It’s too bad, because it’s “that old socially repressive book that is so full of myths and fables” that will help them see the truth for what it is. Yep! That old book just keeps on getting it right every time. We all need to read it more, folks! That old book is the Word directly from Jesus to us. I, for one, am not ignoring what it says. It IS
Sorry about #8. This new laptop of mine just drives me crazy. The keyboard is just too sensitive. It keeps doing what I don’t want it to do.
My last line should have read “It IS the authority of God that is written in that old book.”
The internet is like a garbage dump – full of trash with a few very precious jewels mixed in.
When I was a boy my father expected us to help him make a monthly trip to the garbage dump to help unload the accumulated and collected trash. We didn’t like the job any more than we liked any of the jobs dad gave us but we learned (at that faraway time) that we could occassionally find something of value and bring it home. One had to go through a lot of trash to find anything of value but to a boy whose income amounted to $2 – $3 per month, value had real meaning. I eventually harvested enough junk to make a working go-cart. There were jewels among all the trash.
The internet is like a garbage dump – full of trash with a few very precious jewels mixed in.
Don