The Start of Communications

By; Gary Bergenske

It has been said that communications started around the year 1550.  When I say communications I mean some form of communicating other than just talking to each other.  You see, it started around 1550 because that is when the printing press was invented.  It was at that time that man began printing information and others could read it.  Over the next hundred and fifty years man printed so much information, he really felt like every thing that could possibly be printed was now in print.  That takes us up to about the year 1700.

It took another one hundred years for man to double the amount of printed information.  You see man was getting smarter and the printing presses were getting better.  Now we are up to around the year 1800.

By this time in our history, machines and man were continuing to get better, and the amount of recorded information was doubling every 50 years.  Keep in mind now that every time you double the amount of information it is getting twice as difficult as it took twice as much info, or twice as hard to double again.  However it continued to be doubled.

By the year 1900’s the information was doubling every 25 years.  By the 1950’s and 60’s, now with television, telegraph, and telephones out the information was doubling every 10 years.  The amount of books, newspapers, magazines and encyclopedia’s were growing daily.

By the time we get to the 1980’s and 90’s, now with the popularity of computers growing the time it was taking to double the information was continuing to get shorter and shorter.  Today with computers, the internet, and websites the amount of recorded information doubles every 60 days.  This is astonishing and all of the information is just up there in cyberspace. 

It has been said that if you were to take all of the information on the web, and print it, then put it into books of 500 pages each.  Then if you were to stack these books one on top of another, the pile would reach beyond the moon.  That is how much information we have, and it is doubling every 60 days.

Now, my question to you is this, how much more information do you surround yourself with each year.  When is the last time the information doubled in your life or business or fraternity?  Are you keeping up with the times?