JONTILLMAN.COM | part of the problem since 1976

For years now we have been hearing all about the “information age”. The promise of the “coming information age” in the late 1980’s, the “digital revolution” ushering in the “global information age” in the early 1990’s, the “knowledge economy” made possible by the new “information age” in the late 1990’s, and now the “economics of the intangible” as the successor of the “information age”.

The thing is, there is no such thing as the “information age”, at least not yet. As it stands, we are inundated with data and “input”, but not information. In communications theory information is not defined as data or input but rather as “a difference that makes a difference.” If we are honest, we have to admit that very little of the supposed information that makes up our great Information Age is any different than any other bits of information we may receive, or that those bits make much of a difference to us at all.

Data is, by it’s very nature, gormless and feckless. The mountains and mountains of data, all atomized and pushed into your field of view by outisde actors, has no real worth or purpose, nor does it belong to any context of intelligence, clarity or vitality. it makes no difference, and therefore cannot be information, but is merely data.

Data has been fetishized by pundits and their joiner-followers, much as the “collective intelligence” of the “hive mind” that the internets will bring about in this brave new Information Age has been. Unfortuantely, the hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring, as all it does is spew more data, devoid of all informational context. Without information, that is intelligent, vital discourse, data, and the hive mind it is said to issue from, is meaningless and impossible to differentiate.