[citation][nom]FoShizzleDizzle[/nom]Actually your comment is what is irrelevant. The article is about how much data is consumed through forms of MEDIA on average. Not how much data is processed through your actual day to day life through your eyes and ears.[/citation]
Not quite, FoShizzleDizzle, not quite.
Something is not right with the study. You have 100k words per day. Sound like a lot, a veritable shit ton in fact. But to store these words on a computer as a TXT file would be about 600k, and thats on the high side (you can see how many 3 letters word I use here, can't you?).
Now, take the 100k words and store it as a spoken 64kbps MP3 mono file. Considerably bigger, as it takes about 500 minutes to actually say all those words at 200wpm. This is of course 30kS, which is a 245MB file. And thats low quality mono MP3 @ 44.1kHz. Now, try storing it as an uncompressed WAV file -- likely what the study did as our ears are the ultimate in audio anyways (proof: if one can make an audio file more precise than our ears it is a waste of information). Now this becomes 5.4GB. Our little old 600k TXT file = 5.4GB WAV file.
Now, take our 500 minute spoken interaction and add words to it. Presumably, this would be the equivelant of receiving your 100,000 words via BluRay movies all day. For shits and giggles, lets compress the audio again but do so with, say, DTS @ 1.5Mbps (yes, BD uses a higher bitrate). Roughly speaking, you can get away with 1080p at 10Mbps (BD will be higher; but this should represent most HD cable stations). Now with these parameters we're at 44.2GB.
Its fundamentally meaningless to weight different forms of data equally.
100,000 words:
600k as TXT
245MB as MP3
5.4GB as WAV
44.2GB as 1080p/DTS.
Yet the same information is there -- the 100,000 words. (One may argue, of course, the video stream attached has some information, but this still illustrates the point that information is not to be measured in bits.)
Now, your reaction is to be expected. It will likely be of the form "The study measured data, not information." Quite true. However, as you can plainly see the amount of data does not indicate whatsoever the quantity of information contained. One may use 5GB when merely 600kB sufficies. Given this, I don't understand how you can defend the study as having any purpose. The idea that we consume 34GB per day may very well be a good approximation of the actual facts, but what does it mean? It certainly does NOT indicate how much information we use. The Internet likely comprises the lowest percent of that 34GB, yet it is by far the most useful day-to-day tool. Let me see the TV answer your questions; the TV is a simple device that is one-way communication (it is a "dumb" device.)
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