Why we like photos so much

http://blog.loom.com/why-we-like-photos-so-much/

by jansen • 13 years ago

15 11 13 years ago

blog.loom.com

awwstn• 13 years ago

This wall of text would be much more engaging if you included some photos. :-)

nixy• 13 years ago

Combined with the findings of one study, which says that we consume 34 gigabytes of information (or 100,500 words) outside of work on an average day, it’s no wonder that images come as a relief from our regular information overload.

Can someone explain how 100,500 words is 34 gigabytes?

rm445• 13 years ago

A picture paints a thousand words, so those 34 gigabytes consist of 100.5 pictures, each 346 MB in size :-)

mtdewcmu4• 13 years ago

That sounds about right, although a 346MB picture ought to be worth more than the average picture, you'd think.

_ea1k• 13 years ago

They were exceptionally large words.

(Actually, I think that was just completely wrong... I have no idea how someone could have come up with that number)

mtdewcmu4• 13 years ago

Maybe they're pictures of words. That sort of explains why they'd take up so much space.

rayk• 13 years ago

They seem to be separate statistics. One is how many words we read every day, another is how many GB of information.

LordIllidan• 13 years ago

They are mis-quoting this study: http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo_research_report_consum.php wrongly.

From the linked article:

In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day.

mtdewcmu4• 13 years ago

34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day

Not a tremendously meaningful statistic, at least for the person consuming it. Depending on the kind of TV you have, you could consume 10X as many bytes watching the same TV show. What does that mean?

Why we like photos so much

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