Responses to information are inseparable from their interests, desires, resources, cognitive capacities, and social contexts. Owing to these and other factors, people may ignore information, or misunderstand it, or misuse it. Whether and how new information is used to further public objectives depends upon its incorporation into complex chains of comprehension, action, and response.

Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil, Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency quoted by Lawrence Lessig in ‘Against Transparency’, The New Republic October 2009