Editorial: Drowning in Data

Abstract

In a recent Telecom In Touch newsletter, an article entitled Technology delrvers the future... today, notes that over half of all New Zealanders now have access to the Internet, either at work or at home, and that we send an average of 900,000 Emails every day. We are amongst the top users of the Internet per head of population in the world, and Internet traffic now accounts for 60 percent of all local traffic on our telephone lines.

A correspondent in the June 2001 issue of New Zealand PC World confessed (if confessed is indeed the right word) to writing about 22,000 Emails during the past year, and receiving more than twice that number. This works out at approximately 120 incoming Emails to be dealt with, and 60 new ones written and sent off, every day of the year! The writer also noted that, of these incoming Emails, about 3,500 had attachments, of which he read only about 60 percent. This is just one indicator of a stupendous amount of data pouring over the airwaves, much of it unread. But is this really what communication is all about?