Zettabytes?

This is almost mind-blowing. The powers that be in the world of digital technology have invented a new unit of measure: the zettabyte.

Humanity’s total digital output currently stands at 8,000,000 petabytes - which each represent a million gigabytes - but is expected to pass 1.2 zettabytes this year.

One zettabyte is equal to one million petabytes, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 individual bytes.

The current size of the world’s digital content is equivalent to all the information that could be stored on 75bn Apple iPads, or the amount that would be generated by everyone in the world posting messages on the microblogging site Twitter constantly for a century.

The rapid growth of the “digital universe” has been caused by the explosion of social networking, online video, digital photography and mobile phones.

I find it shocking how fully immersed and dependent we have become on digital age technology - in just the last 15 to 20 years. I speak as one who likewise finds himself more immersed and dependent than is probably wise. A zettabyte, like the national debt, is a difficult number for me to comprehend. How many people out there would be utterly shocked to discover that there is a real world out there that does not involve broadband, Apple, and satellite television DVRs?

So while gidgets and gadgets have an undeniable "coolness" factor to them, we would do well to be aware of the great fragility of it all, and take care not to let our lives devolve completely into a series of 0's and 1's. The digital world and all its zettabytes can disappear in the blink of an eye. And if it did, would it be "the end," or would it be the beginning of a new age of rediscovery? I wonder.