Ready to have your mind blown? Here’s an interesting annual study done by Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian for the UC Regents entitled, “How Much Information?”. The study found that:
–Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced about 5 exabytes of new information in 2002. Ninety-two percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, mostly in hard disks. (five exabytes of information is equivalent in size to the information contained in half a million new libraries the size of the Library of Congress print collections!!!)
–the amount of new information stored on paper, film, magnetic, and optical media has about doubled in the last three years.
–Information flows through electronic channels — telephone, radio, TV, and the Internet — contained almost 18 exabytes of new information in 2002, three and a half times more than is recorded in storage media. Ninety eight percent of this total is the information sent and received in telephone calls – including both voice and data on both fixed lines and wireless.
What does this really mean for our society(ies)? This study is particularly interesting in light of the movement by several organizations (RIAA, WIPO etc.) to constrict citizens’ freedom of and access to information in all its guises. Food for thought.
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