The amount of data produced in the world is staggering. We perform billions of searches per day. We watch billions of videos. We upload billions of images and posts. We receive billions of spam emails. We send billions of text messages. We swipe, like, and tweet constantly. We can say almost anything and have it shared globally, instantly. And all these things are becoming easier and easier to perform by more and more connected people. The sheer volume of available information is mind-blowing.

In contrast, the work of an SME is not getting easier, at least not at the same pace. Uncovering new truths remains a laborious task. Ask anyone who creates peer-reviewed scientific papers for serious journals and they will tell you that publishing a paper with new information is hard work. It is tedious and time-consuming, and yet it rarely gets much attention.

Consequently, the sheer disproportionality of fluff to facts and subjectivity to objectivity is lopsided and trending further and further toward the unproductive, insignificant, and pointless. The sheer volume of meaningless content consumes more and more of our days, leaving little time for the SME to make a point or convince a doubter. The volume of content is trending against the SME and that trend grows larger and larger every day.