The world's libraries now store well over 100 million original volumes. So, in one sense, it is now easier to write the book you want rather than try to find it. But resting on these shelves are the Lord's Prayer (70 words), the 23rd Psalm (115 words), and the Ten Commandments (135 words). These are the basic tenets by which a large percentage of the human race live. In contrast, the documentation defining and pricing cabbages in the European Union consumes nearly 7,000 words.

Why do we use unnecessary prose to describe everyday situations and objects - have we lost the ability to be concise? Apart from wearing out our eyes, the sheer human effort needed to generate the mountains of words, the confusion they cause, and the storage space they demand beggars belief. Why not keep it simple, why not use fewer words and more pictures?

Perhaps our processes of communication are becoming like the fast food industry; confused by the richness of options and the efficacy of quality and quantity. Press, radio and TV are highly dependent on the snapshot, sound and/or video bite. Seldom are we given the opportunity to judge on the basis of the full story.

So very often it seems that really important issues hit the page and screen for the briefest of periods, while reams of paper and air time are devoted to the trivial and insignificant.

I have often pondered the strange phenomenon of the online newspaper with the printed page reproduced directly on the screen, verbatim. As far as I can see, no account has been taken of the change in medium - from printed page to network and PC. To ignore the ability to combine text and pictures with audio and video, let alone interaction, seems about as sensible as double entry book-keeping on a PC. By and large, a direct transfer from paper to screen is always a bad move.

When I was at school and college I attended classes on communication and creative writing. Perhaps we now need courses on creative communication which involves the simultaneous exploitation of all the variables offered by our developing technology.

I cannot imagine that Shakespeare, Browning or Dickens would have restricted themselves to quill, parchment and paper, if the multimedia choices we enjoy today had been available to them. My guess is they would have recorded their plays, verse and stories using technology to the full. The world would not have been left to try to interpret exactly what they meant, all would have been much clearer and richer.

Come to think of it, so might the law, the legislation of governments and operational documents of companies and institutions.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk