Infosphere

Infosphere is a metaphysical realm of information, data, knowledge, and communication, populated by informational entities called inforgs (or, informational organisms). Infosphere is portmanteau of information and -sphere.

Though one example is cyberspace, infospheres are not limited to purely online environments; they can include both offline and analogue information.

The first documented use of the infosphere was in 1970 by Kenneth E. Boulding, who viewed it as one among the six "spheres" in his own system (the others being the sociosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere). Boulding claimed:

[T]he infosphere...consists of inputs and outputs of conversation, books, television, radio, speeches, church services, classes, and lectures as well as information received from the physical world by personal observation.... It is clearly a segment of the sociosphere in its own right, and indeed it has considerable claim to dominate the other segments. It can be argued that development of any kind is essentially a learning process and that it is primarily dependent on a network of information flows.

In 1971, the term was used in a Time Magazine book review by R.Z. Sheppard, who wrote:

In much the way that fish cannot conceptualize water or birds the air, man barely understands his infosphere, that encircling layer of electronic and typographical smog composed of cliches from journalism, entertainment, advertising and government.

In 1980, it was used by Alvin Toffler in his book The Third Wave, in which he writes:

What is inescapably clear, whatever we choose to believe, is that we are altering our infosphere fundamentally...we are adding a whole new strata of communication to the social system. The emerging Third Wave infosphere makes that of the Second Wave era - dominated by its mass media, the post office, and the telephone - seem hopelessly primitive by contrast.