Dr. Vannevar Bush speculates as to the possible future of communication as the way in which we record, store and consult information. For the most part, Bush see’s a problem with the large amount of information and data being recorded and stored versus how little this information seems to be consulted and reviewed. He says, “If the aggregate time spent writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling.” This point is interesting because we have a massive amount if information being stored for academic inquiry, however, the vast majority of this information is never consulted, and thus, the knowledge is lost and potentially becomes redundant.

It’s also interesting to note that this article was published in 1945, a fact which I overlooked before it was brought to my attention in the tutorial. This should probably have been relatively obvious considering some his ideas of future technologies have already been realised. The ‘walnut camera’ for example fits the description of the GoPro, a small camera that is widely available today. There are also cameras in development the size of a Panadol tablet, which really highlights the exponential development of technology.