According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (quoted in the Harvard Business Review), during the 20th Century, the age of Nobel Prize winning scientists increased by 6 years. A similar overall trend can be seen in the age of inventors and first patents. Why would this be so? An explanation put forward is the explosion of information.
BTW, I am aware that brainmail hasn’t been sighted for a while so here’s a bunch more stats that may – or may not – end up there eventually (with sources).
– 31% of people aged over 18 years-of-age spend, on average, 5 hours per day on a computer, tablet or smartphone.
– According to the British Retail Consortium, an average cash transaction in the UK costs 1.7 pence in transportation and banking costs, while a credit card transaction costs 37 pence.
– In 1800, 40% of the world’s trade passed through the port of Liverpool.
– Between 2003-4, 253 million books were borrowed from public libraries in the UK. By 2008-9 this figure had fallen to 215 million.
– By 2050, between 15% and 37% of species will be “committed to extinction.”
– A 2007 study in LA found drivers within a 15-block district drove 1.5 billion Kilometres each year looking for somewhere to park. That’s equivalent to 38 trips around the Earth, 178,000 litres of fuel, and 662 tonnes of CO2.
– In America, 14.5% of families suffer from “food insecurity” while 4.4 million people are fed by the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
– Between 1984 and 2005, advertising sales halved at American newspapers.
– By 2020, 75% of TV channels will be accessed via the Internet (currently, 75% of video content is accessed via conventional television).
– 70% of app users do not read the terms and conditions before agreeing to them.
– Facebook accounts for 1 in 7 minutes spent online globally.
– Around 3 billion people are expected to be online by 2016, almost double the number online in 2010 (1.6 billion).
– 95% of posts to brands’ pages on Facebook go unanswered.
– In the early 1900s, farming employed around 50% of Americans. Today the figure is around 3%.
“Between 2003-4, 253 million books were borrowed from public libraries in the UK. By 2008-9 this figure had fallen to 215 million.”
It’s important to note “in the UK.” In the US, the FY2004 circulation figure was two billion. The FY2009 figure was 2.41 billion, and the FY2010 figure appears to be 2.58 billion. Circulation of all sorts has continued to rise for U.S. public libraries, as have most other activity measures.