That’s a lot!
Have you ever wondered how much data you create on a daily basis? Well, brace yourself for this — according to recent studies, the average person generates around 1.7 gigabytes of data daily. That’s equivalent to 1,700 high-quality photos or an hour and a half of standard-resolution video. Can you imagine trying to take 1,700 photos in a day?
If you are interested in more statistics about the sheer amount of data circulating in 2023, refer to the following article.
53 Important Statistics About How Much Data Is Created Every Day — Financesonline.com
All your interactions are data points
In today’s digital age, it seems like every interaction we have is a data point that’s being recorded and analysed.
Every time we sign into an app or website, every message we send, every post we like, every purchase we make, and even every step we take is being tracked and stored by companies. For instance, when you sign into Instagram, the time, location, device, and activity are all recorded. When you buy something at Tesco, your purchase history, payment method, and location data are all collected.
This constant stream of data creates a detailed profile of our lives, preferences, and behaviours, which companies can use to make predictions and provide personalized experiences. While this may sound intrusive, it’s important to be aware of how our data is being used.
How is the data used?
The personal data you create on a daily basis is messy and as result would be troublesome to clean. Don’t worry there are several companies that work hard to clean and transform the data. I say that sarcastically as if they are helping you! The truth is they are and that is evident when you look at some of the common use cases:
- advertising — ensuring you see relevant and interesting advertisements based on personal data about you
- product recommendations— for instance, Netflix might recommend a group of shows based on your tastes and interests
- Personalised experiences — for example, Spotify wrapped every year is based on your listening data from the entire year. Another example
The use cases are endless given the amount of data we create everyday. We are essentially human servers!
Privacy issues are always going to be an issue and a good watch would be Mark Zuckerberg’s congress hearing in 2018. He was asked numerous hand-wavy questions about the ins and outs of personal data privacy. Facebook were few years later accused of being dishonest about personal data privacy and their use of it. This just goes to show people are unaware of how exactly there data is being used.
What to do about it?
If you are sceptical or interested in how your data is being used, I suggest checking the privacy settings in any application you are using. You might find out something new!
