By Susan Ksiezopolski
Lean into the unknown
Evaluate the gaps you need to fill
And never stop learning
Revisit what you think you know
Now is the time to grow
Now more than ever we have access to so much information and knowledge at our fingertips – literally. We can google search anything, and expand our understanding instantly. The 2022 Google stats indicate that every single second 99,000 searches are conducted – imagine that in 1998 Google processed 10,000 searches in an entire day!!
Not only are the number of searches growing, the amount of actual information that is being created is also growing! The latest estimate is that there are over 328 million terabytes of new data generated every day. An astronomical number that is hard to relate to. To put it into context – 1terabyte is 1 trillion bytes (a byte is one unit of data that is eight binary digits long). A byte is what computers use to represent a character such as a letter, number or typographic symbol. Still a bit mind boggling? One terabyte holds as much information as 1,500 CDs. In non-technical terms, according to University of Oregon, a terabyte is approximately 250 movies, each with a two-hour running time, or 17,000 hours of music. Information is growing daily equivalent to; 492,000 CDs, 82,000 movies (164,000 hours, 6,833 days, 18.72 years of movie run time), 5,576,000 hours of music (232,333 days, 636 years). We have no shortage of things to learn.
In 1900 human knowledge was doubling every 100 years. By 1945 it was doubling every 25 years and in 2020 it was estimated at doubling every 12 hours! Our brains on the other hand according to Ray Kurzwell, (a Google computer scientist), only holds 1.25 terabytes of data. How do we keep up and keep learning, given the pace of growth of information and human knowledge? We can start by focusing on building our own brain capacity through continuous learning. Research shows that learning keeps us healthy, happy and well. By keeping our brain active as we learn, it helps support our longevity.
We learn by reading, exploring, keeping curious about the world around us, reading more, exploring more and of course signing up for workshops, courses and other new activities. Check out website for your next learning opportunity and make time to always learn, and learn always!