Survey Finds Many of Us Drowning in Data

Remember how back in the day everyone used to refer to the Internet as the "Information Superhighway?" It was never a very good metaphor and a decade or two later, we're just starting to realize how lame it really was.

As the amount of data, the speed at which it's transmitted and the appliances we used to interact with it continue to increase, we're all coming to realize the Internet is more like an ocean, a really big ocean. And while we may like to think of ourselves as surfers, many of us are just treading water, trying to keep up as the waves get bigger and come at us faster.

So it's perhaps not surprising that a survey by Magnify.net finds many respondents resorting to watery metaphors to describe their data usage; nearly 65% say the information coming at them today has grown by more than 50% compared with last year. Many used descriptions such as "a roaring river," "a flood" and "a massive tidal wave."

Who are these poor souls adrift on a sea of data?

Magnify.net says 78% of the 200 respondents to the survey were technologists, journalists, entrepreneurs, executives and professionals. Nearly half of them said they were connected to the Web "from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed."

Whether this is a good thing is, of course, debatable. Of those surveyed, nearly 77% ssaid their job requires them to be available online and 41% said clients expect to be able to make contact at any time.

The survey confirmed that, for many of the respondents, personal time and work time have blurred, so much so that even the middle of the night is no longer off limits. Of those surveyed, 35% said they answer work emails while spending time with their children and 43% said they do so on a date or social occasion.

The survey found that many people feel they're missing important news and information, and that their friendships and family life have suffered as a result.  They're hoping for a "new filter to manage the flood," as Magnify.net put it.