Why we like photos so much | Hacker News Reader

Why we like photos so much

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15 pointsjansen11 comments

> Combined with the findings of one study, which says that we consume 34 gigabytes of information (or 100,500 words) outside of work on an average day, it’s no wonder that images come as a relief from our regular information overload.

Can someone explain how 100,500 words is 34 gigabytes?

They are mis-quoting this study: http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo_research_report_consum.php wrongly.

From the linked article:

In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day.

> 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day

Not a tremendously meaningful statistic, at least for the person consuming it. Depending on the kind of TV you have, you could consume 10X as many bytes watching the same TV show. What does that mean?

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

— Carl Sagan (1934–1996)

If the bits in a video broadcast were printed and bound, it would make a formidable book. But very dull reading, I'm sure.

I remember the day Carl Sagan died. I was on irc, and when I saw the news, since it was on-topic, I passed it along to my channel. A long time ago...

A picture paints a thousand words, so those 34 gigabytes consist of 100.5 pictures, each 346 MB in size :-)

That sounds about right, although a 346MB picture ought to be worth more than the average picture, you'd think.

They were exceptionally large words.

(Actually, I think that was just completely wrong... I have no idea how someone could have come up with that number)

Maybe they're pictures of words. That sort of explains why they'd take up so much space.

They seem to be separate statistics. One is how many words we read every day, another is how many GB of information.

This wall of text would be much more engaging if you included some photos. :-)

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