A group of researchers at UC Berkeley have just released research that shows global information production grew by 30% annually from 1999 to 2002.
"All of a sudden, almost every aspect of life around the world is being recorded and stored in some information format," said [researcher Peter] Lyman. "That's a real change in our human ecology."
According to the researchers, the amount of new information stored on paper, film, optical and magnetic media has doubled in the last three years. And, new information produced in those forms during 2002 was equal in size to half a million new libraries, each containing a digitized version of the print collections of the entire Library of Congress, they added. The researchers also report that electronic channels – such as TV, radio, the telephone and the Internet – contained three and a half times more new information in 2002 than did the information that was stored.
