Drowning in information, but starved for knowledge

…and remember, this graphic is from the pre-household-internet era, when television (with only 3 major networks) and newspapers were how people got their news. Even then, before ubiquitous networking and supercomputers in our pockets, it was said that there was too much information.

The term “information overload” is said to have made its first appearance in the 1964 book The Managing of Organizations: The Adminsitrative Struggle by social scientist Bertram Gross, and popularized in Future Shock by futurist Alvin Toffler.

As long as I’m talking about Future Shock, here’s the documentary film version of the book, in all its 1972 glory (dig that soundtrack!), with narration by none other than a cigar-hoovering Orson Welles:

Another ’70s gem on the topic worth checking out: 1979’s Information Overload, from the underappreciated punk/prog band Alien City:

Also worth checking out: Wikipedia’s entry on “information overload”.

I found the graphic via Reginald Braithwaite, who found it via Sardonicus.