Anyone who’s written for an audience can attest to the humbling experience of having one’s work edited. A Ragan.com feature titled “Black and white and red all over” is an assortment of communicators’ recollections about the first time they experienced the wrath of the red pen.

The advice ranges from the stylistic, like avoiding Gonzo journalism and questionable metaphors, to the emotional – not falling in love with your own words.

That may be the toughest advice to take, as that love can be as enduring as your very first crush. (In my case, “baseball Brad.”) Painful as it may be, though, it is still vital instruction to follow in order to communicate effectively with your audience by using language that is meaningful to them rather than your ego.

This leads us to another item of interest: Americans are consuming more information overall.

This week, UC San Diego released the findings of a research project that was sponsored by Seagate, AT&T, Cisco, IBM, Intel, LSI, Oracle and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in a report called “How Much Information?”

According to the report, an average person on an average day in 2008 consumed 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes. The total amount was 10,845 trillion words and 3.6 zettabytes, and that doesn’t include the data that Americans consumed at work.

The lion’s share of that raw data and information reaches us via games, video and other byte-heavy formats. Contrary to what you might think, that doesn’t negate the value of the written word. Instead, it makes it imperative that the words you do write are relevant and targeted if they are to have any chance of reaching and resonating with your audience.

Consider your message and tailor it to the challenges, ideas and values that matter the most to your readers. It’s the only way to break through the zettabytes, petabytes and exabytes of other information that are duking it out for the same few seconds of attention.