Before starting this blog I decided to look a few of my fellow DBCers blogs. I decided to take a different route than some the other DBCers. Instead of doing a blog about a concrete problem, such as Net Neutrality, Tech Education in the US, or even just being destracted by technology, I decided to talk more about an abstract idea and the problems that can come from this in the future. I want to talk about data.
Right now we are generating an unimaginable amount of data. Every day people are creating things, posting, sharing tons of data. Even this blog is increasing the amount of data out there. There is no real way to measure all this data that is being created and collected. In one article, it states that every 2 days we create as much data as we did up to 2003. We will create more information in the next 2 days than all of the information from the dawn of civilization, that is just seem unbelievable. But other articles back that up, Like this one that says abgout 90% of the worlds data has been created in the past few years. That article also talks about some of the issues that we need to think about when it comes to data.
One of the issues is simple storage. How can we store all this data, especially since we are creating more everyday? A lot of this data most people will never see. Emails, picture, text message this all adds up data, but its really only important or useful to the one creating it. But as a whole we don't know what is or isn't going to be useful. For example, some of the original Dr. Who episodes are lost forever because at the time BBC didn't think they were going to be important and taped over them. How we decided what to store and how we store this data is a big problem.
Another big problem is what do we do with all this data. I am not going to go into detail about this but will just give you something to think about. Who owns all this data? Does the person that created own it or where they posted the data? What about personal data? Companies are collecting specific data about you, your search history, what you buy, etc. Is there a way to stop this? Is there a way to stop them from selling your information? What about the government and the data they collect? Is it a policy where if you aren't doing anything bad that you don't need to hide anything or do you feel like its an invasion of privacy?
And lastly I want to talk about how we receive this data. We already talked about how we are creating a lot of data, but we need to talk about some of the problems that occur when we try to receive it. I will be talking about how we view entertainment specifically games first. Right now we have a system in place where for most things, you can either get a physical copy or a digital copy. In most cases the price of both are the same, which doesn't make any sense. If you are buying a physical copy of a game, you should be paying more for the cost of the material and the labor it involved to create a disk. But a digital copy doesn't require all of that. Once the game is finished and ready to be shipped out, all they have to do is allows people to download it and they are ready to go. Obviously there is a little more to it but my point is that there is no extra cost for the material of the disk or the labor to make the disk. Digital copies should be cheaper, but they aren't. And if thats not a big enough insult, think about selling the game. You can easily do this with a physical copy, sell the game and make some money back. Can't do this with digital. The system we have now is very flawed.
Not only that but think about how we receive it. Right now in the US we are having major issues with ISPs. Look up some information about Net Neutrality, or internet fast lanes. This is a huge problem, and the decisions that will come out of it in the next few years will greatly affect how we receive data in the future.
I know this blog seems like it goes all over the place, and it does. Technology is apart of all of our lives, it has problems all over the place and I wanted to show that. I can't suggest any solutions for these problems either, they are just something to think about. With how fast technology is changing some of these may not be an issue in a few years, but you can be sure that more issues will pop up. It is good practice to stay on top of these developments and understand how they will affect you.