Has There Ever Been a Period That Was Not an Information Age?
Over at his blog, Paul Kedrosky lists some of the questions on the All Souls Exam (All Souls College apparently sits within Oxford and is unique because “all of its members automatically become Fellows, i.e., full members of the College’s governing body.“). Anyway, the questions are generally interesting (and very difficult), but I particularly like this one:
Has there ever been a period that was not an information age?
I wonder this just about as often as people say the phrase. I certainly am no expert in history, but it seems to me that throughout all time people have had to deal with more information than their predecessors. Then again, I am a self-admitted “ever wasser”: “[insisting] that at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to others–that something like this is going on is exactly what makes it a modern moment.”
Hi, I'm 
Thanks for the wonderful post. And what a great question. I completely agree with you. The insight made by Clay Shirky (http://www.psfk.com/2008/09/its-not-information-overload-its-filter-failure.html) about what we are facing is not new and not an information overload but a filter failure.
You are right, during every age people have had to deal with more information than the previous generation. However, at least two critical factors were different:
- the increase in information volume was not really high from one generation to the next, until around the 1950s.
- The use of information played a way smaller role in the lives and jobs of most people. A lot of people were farmers, for example, and the information they needed to farm was received from parents and grandparents. That information had not changed much in centuries.
Let’s fast-forward to today. Nowadays, most people process or create information as part of their jobs. We all sit behind a desk and in front of a computer adn that’s what we do – take in information, apply some processing and send it on its way.