Global data created per year

As global data creation has exploded upward, deaths from furniture and TV tip-overs have declined, a correlation that suggests either that the internet is making our bookcases safer or that we have simply replaced our heavy CRT televisions with flatscreens that are too light to kill anyone. The second explanation is almost certainly correct, which makes this one of the rare correlations on this site that contains an actual mechanism hiding in plain sight. The data got bigger, the TVs got thinner, and the furniture got safer. Correlation with a hint of causation.

Global data creation exploded in 2020 as work and schooling moved online, and in the same year furniture tip-over deaths rose as families spent unprecedented time in the rooms with those new work-from-home setups. The common variable is the hours spent at home in 2020 — one metric counts what was uploaded, the other counts what fell over.

Eight years of data growth and tip-over death decline is one of the few correlations on this site where a genuine causal thread exists, even if it runs through an unexpected intermediary. The CRT died, the flat-panel rose, the data exploded, and the children got safer. Technology occasionally solves problems it never intended to address. The bookshelf, however, remains unanchored.