Which contains more information: a five-minute video or a five-page document?

As anyone who’s had to pay for excess cellular bandwidth knows, the video contains far more raw data than the text file. That doesn’t mean it has more information, though.

What if the video shows someone reading a Dr. Seuss book aloud? Most of the raw data in the video would just be a binary encoding of the speaker’s picture, and a tiny bit of motion around their mouth. The audio track would contain moderately paced speech in delightfully simple rhymes. In five minutes of viewing, the audience would easily get the point. Now imagine that the five-page document we’re comparing it to is a scientific research paper. Comprehending it – fully receiving its information – might require an hour of patient study, or longer if the reader isn’t an expert in the field.