Drowning?

dig·it·al: adjective - of or pertaining to a digit or finger

Origin 1400-50 Middle English, Latin digitalis

1400, ladies and gentlemen!  Who knew back then that our universe will be framed in a digital context of bits and bytes, far, far larger in scope than the human digits!

The stats are mind-numbing.   

The Large Hadron Collider produces 40 TB of data per second.  A UCSD study, back in 2008, estimated that we consume 34GB of data per person per day.  I can hear some of you saying, 34GB no way.  Think beyond what you consume explicitly.  Think of the numerous grids you interact with - the wireless network you connect to, the mobile devices that you use, your car, the digital appliances at home, cameras, sensors on the highway, the barcodes...  

Now extrapolate using the velocity with which we are accumulating data - growing yearly at about 60%.  While you gasp for breath, let me give you the good news: we read 3 times more than we did back in 1980.

The limiting factor is that the human brain was, is, and will always remain at the same processing speed: 7 +/- 2 variables.  How then do we cope with the onslaught of data?