In their book Megatrends (Links to an external site.) (1982), Naisbitt and Aburdene reported that we are shifting from an Industrial Society to an Information Society. One of the trends they listed was a shift “from hierarchies to networking.” They predicted an entirely different way of managing information and distributing power. Various networks would radically transform and increase public access to goods, services,and data, on a global scale. This network became today’s Internet (Links to an external site.). However, with this network came a major drawback and the following quote is even more apropos today than it was in 1982.
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” The enormous amount of information available must be managed. “Uncontrolled and unorganized information is no longer a resource in an information society—instead it becomes the enemy”.
After thinking about these quotes, write a 300 word post which addresses the following:
In what ways are we “drowning in information but starved for knowledge”? Give some specific examples that illustrate this quote. The second quote relates to the definition we have been using for technical communications (managing information). In what ways does this “uncontrolled and unorganized information” become a problem when doing research. Give examples to support this statement.
