Information explosion: Difference between revisions

The '''information explosion''' is the rapid increase in the amount of [[publication|published]] [[information]] or [[data]] and the effects of this abundance.<ref>Hilbert, M. (2015). Global information Explosion:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-AqzPe_gNs&list=PLtjBSCvWCU3rNm46D3R85efM0hrzjuAIg. Digital Technology and Social Change [Open Online Course at the University of California] freely available at: https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/949415</ref> As the amount of available data grows, the problem of [[information management|managing the information]] becomes more difficult, which can lead to [[information overload]]. The Online Oxford English Dictionary indicates use of the phrase in a March 1964 ''[[New Statesman]]'' article.<ref>“Information.” http://dictionary.oed.com. accessed January 4, 2008</ref> ''The New York Times'' first used the phrase in its editorial content in an article by Walter Sullivan on June 7, 1964, in which he described the phrase as "much discussed". (p11.) <ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/07/u-s-will-remove-reactor-in-arctic.html?_r=0|title=U. S. WILL REMOVE REACTOR IN ARCTIC; Compacting Snow Squeezes Device Under Ice Sheet|newspaper=The New York Times|date=7 June 1964}}</ref> The earliest known use of the phrase was in a speech about television by NBC president [[Pat Weaver]] at the Institute of Practitioners of Advertising in London on September 27, 1955. The speech was rebroadcast on radio station [[WSUI]] in [[Iowa City, Iowa|Iowa City]] and excerpted in the ''[[The Daily Iowan|Daily Iowan]]'' newspaper two months later.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Weaver|first=Sylvester|date=22 Nov 1955|title=The Impact of TV in the U.S.|page=2|work=Daily Iowan|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/iowa-city-daily-iowan-nov-22-1955-p-2/|access-date=18 Aug 2021|quote=I believe that in the last few years we have set in motion an information explosion. To each man there is flooding more information than he can presently handle, but he is learning how to handle it and, as he learns, it will do him good.}}</ref>

Since "information" in electronic media is often used synonymously with "data", the term ''information explosion'' is closely related to the concept of ''data flood'' (also dubbed ''data deluge''). Sometimes the term ''information flood'' is used as well. All of those basically boil down to the ever-increasing amount of [[Digital data|electronic data]] exchanged per time unit. A term that covers the potential negative effects of information explosion is ''information inflation''.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Doomen, J. |year=2009 |title=Information Inflation |journal=[[Journal of Information Ethics]] |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=27–37 |doi=10.3172/jie.18.2.27 |url=https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2863108/view|doi-access=free }}</ref> The awareness about non-manageable amounts of data grew along with the advent of ever more powerful data processing since the mid-1960s.<ref>[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=data+flood%2Cdata+deluge%2Cinformation+flood&year_start=1955&year_end=2010&corpus=0&smoothing=2 Google Books Ngram viewer] for the terms mentioned here</ref>