Study reveals we read the equivalent of 174 newspapers a day
The information age is gathering momentum according to a new report compiled by Dr Martin Hilbert at the University of Southern California.
It claims that explosive growth in the internet, 24hr TV and smartphones is now bombarded us with five times as much information as we received in 1986 – or in the lingo of the report 174 newspapers worth.
Surprisingly however our productivity, in terms of the amount of information we churn out each day has risen even faster, rising 200 fold from just two and a half pages 24 years ago to six newspapers.
This reflects our migration from analogue communications; post telephone and fax, to email, twitter and social media today.
Indeed the explosion in information has been such that there is now estimated to be as much as 295 exabytes of information floating around the world.
The studies authors used the analogy of an 85 page newspaper meaning that, unfortunately, your copy of The Sun just won’t cut it.
… and for those uncertain what an exabyte looks like it is a one, followed by 20 zero’s - 100,000,000,000,000,000,000.