What is data and why is it important?
Since humanity being exist, there have been always being precious things. In the first ancient times, we would say iron and coper, and then in 19. and 20. century, coal and petrol are considered as valuable. What about the 21. century? As you see from the title, it is clear that the most valuable thing would probably be data in this century. With the invention of technological devices such as computers, satellites, mobile phones, and aircrafts, the data is easily created and collected by them. The term of data have been widely using and its resources and areas in use are getting bigger day by day.
What is data?
We know materials comprise of atoms. There is barely no part without an atomic particle in the nature. There is an electron cloud running around the atomic nucleus, and protons & neutrons exist inside the atom. This configuration that depends on numbers and the structure of especially electron atoms makes a material as it. In this scenario, humanity or world is like a nucleus and data is like that cloud. So, data consists of datums like the cloud from electrons and it exists around us, and it gives informations as electrons do. It says when, where, who, what about us and observational areas so we are able to call data as a sum of “wh…” questions. Thanks to the technology, knowledges about the location, time, how many times, topics that you’ve talked could be easily gathered and tracked through the devices. After receiving from databases or servers, they are transformed to a digital binary form called “Raw Data” and when it is needed, it is comfortably processed by computers.
Why is data so precious today?
Since data has been using in almost all fields of life, there are various reasons of being precious. First, thanks to its storage and accessibility features, it is not very hard to use it. Therefore, you can store a huge dataset as small megabytes in both hardware and software systems and whenever you want to reach it, you are able to get it. Secondly, it is a crucial raw material for advertisers in digital marketing sector. You have to possess datasets in order to predict what or when you should release the advertisement in platforms such as social media, TV, or websites. As you know, whenever you use an online shopping website/application, it shows a policy about cookies to accept it. Because each searches to look for a product are processed and so the more advertisers knows about the customer, the more product they sell. Next one, data helps us to solve problems. Let you imagine an aircraft engine. As an expert, you analyzed parameters as pressure, temperature, oil amount when it does not work. According to your analysis, you will have foresights about engine failure. For example, if the parameters exceed threshold in down or up side, you could repair the engine before the take-off. Thus, you save money by acting pro-actively thanks to your data analysis. Finally, governments want to know who you are. Have you ever thought about how social media companies grow. The government can use it to prevent and solve crimes, deliver benefits to citizens or illegally target political dissent. It is requested from tech companies for both harmful and useful works by official authorities. Although some of the companies reject this request, others could deal with the government. It is one of the easiest way to transfer the data that social media companies sometimes declares crashing applications and websites because of cyber attacks. What actually happen is the data sharing with third-part individuals. Especially, the FBI has particular interest in data from genetic and social media sites, because it could help solve crimes and protect the public.
To sum up, each century has an own valuable thing data nowadays. Its importance is well understood by years. Addition to this, scientists are also looking for new data sources so that people can live in welfare, clear, and sustainable environment. Accordingly, data sources would likely be more common in daily life activities. Unfortunately, though it is mentioned generally about useful sides of data, harmful effects are immeasurably severe about especially privacy of our life. For instance, nobody enter your bedroom without your permission but now mobile devices do. Countries like Germany are aware about seriousness of the situation, but what about other part of world? I hope data is going to be used for advantages of the nature and humankind, if so not, there will be no the term of “private life” in the future. Whoever has the data is more powerful and abuse people. Wishing for more a respectful world.
