America Hungry, Need Data

According to a new study by the University of California, San Diego, from 1980 through 2008 the total number of bytes bitten by Americans has upped by 6% per year and now stands at an incredibly huge sounding 3.6 zettabytes. (Or one billion trillion bytes, if that’s easier to imagine.) And someone has to produce all this content, which means the future of electronic innovation appears to be rather secure. Here we break down what 3.6 zettabytes—or 34 gigabytes a day—means in terms of daily consumption.