Within the past three decades, technological advances have been unprecedented compared to any other time in history. For the vast majority of human existence, it was safe to assume that the world in which you were born would seem pretty much the same when you die. This is no longer the case.
Close your eyes and reflect on how much things have changed in the past 10 years – we have witnessed the rise of the smartphone, Facebook and twitter, and the growing ubiquity of “the internet of things”. This progression is not going to stop.
Technology has revolutionized every faucet of our daily lives. From the very moment you wake up from the alarm set by your phone to you falling asleep scrolling through your Instagram feed one last time, it hard to imagine a life without technology. Even our coffee machines are now being connected to the freaking internet. You can set the exact temperature of your morning coffee at a particular time all from your bed using your glowing plastic brick.
We have gotten comfortable with technology and how it deeply integrated it is within our lives. However, few people stop and reflect on the implications of placing such huge dependence. What are we sacrificing for the convenience of technology?
When we allow technology to be so ingrained and interconnected with our lives, we share and trust our devices with the most intimate details of our lives. We send heartfelt messages and personal photos to our loved ones – all of which are stored in a server somewhere in the world. Every photo we post and every message we send through Facebook, we are giving up our personal data to this multi-billion enterprise. Terry Zhang describes this phenomenon in his blog post, Era Of Big Data: Invasion Of Privacy. Technology has opened a platform for companies to collect consumer data en masse – collecting your info for the sole purpose of monetizing you and your information. Terry brings up the example of targeted ads you see around the web, emphasizing how they “eerily seem to have been placed there specifically for you.” This was the result of big data – companies have effectively used your own information against you.
For many people, this idea is not new. Most people realize that their presence online is constantly being collected and analyzed. However, given this negative connotation, what most people do not hear are the positive effects of this movement.
Data mining has provided researchers invaluable information towards the development of programs that can save lives. Using data collected from social media feeds, researchers are deploying new technologies that gather data and use it to improve emergency response times.
Word count: 444 words
References
https://www.edq.com/blog/3-positive-side-effects-of-data-mining-in-washington/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/
