Other than leaks via Wikileaks etc. i don't have access to a lot of information that the president of the USA had 30 years ago. Most public information on the internet today was also available pre-internet. The main difference is the time needed to access information. Instead of searching for hours or even days it's now minutes. Time effiency increased a lot with the internet.
Because it is now so much faster to get information the question has become: is the info that i want really relevant to me? Otherwise it is still a time waster even though it only takes a minute to look up. Like many people here i tend to be intellectually curious and knowing things gives satisfaction. But increasingly i have come to realize that much is not truely relevant to me. I think that's where the focus should be for future technologies, helping people get small amounts of highly relevant information while respecting their privacy.
Because it is now so much faster to get information the question has become: is the info that i want really relevant to me? Otherwise it is still a time waster even though it only takes a minute to look up. Like many people here i tend to be intellectually curious and knowing things gives satisfaction. But increasingly i have come to realize that much is not truely relevant to me. I think that's where the focus should be for future technologies, helping people get small amounts of highly relevant information while respecting their privacy.