At the point of no return

As I tracked my contributions to the data pools strung across the Internet, I felt like a kid in an arcade. The tokens were my personal information and preferences. The games represented the information I wanted to access on the Internet. Once you put your token in you could play the game. But once the token was placed in the machine there isn’t much of a chance for getting it out. The only way to get it back out would be to go through a long process of taking the machine apart, and removing the token. However the score you had while playing the game is still in the machine. You interaction with the game is forever recorded in the confines of its memory bank.
This morning I bought an e-book however I had to give my information to the site, my name my age my gender, just to purchase the book. As a result I have an e book company trying to sell me more ebooks, and their competitors ads popping up on my Facebook sidebar. I wanted the practicality of buying a book from my home, but in turn had to sacrifice my privacy.
As a went about my day, my main contribution to big data came from my use of Pandora, Instagram, and Facebook, sprinkled with the occasional google search. What I realized as a plugged along scrolling through content, is that I have created a pattern within my daily routine that could deem me in a certain geographic. As a result my Facebook Instagram and YouTube, have all adapted to fit my preferences. I say my preferences, however they are mearly a vicious cycle that endulge my most frivolous interests. I like to watch make up videos, mostly of really feminine men putting on makeup and then turning into the most dazzling lady you have ever seen, ITS AMAIZING, they might be wizards. But in reality I don’t really wear very much makeup, most days I go without any makeup. And like many things that interest my on the Internet, glass blowing, polymer clay molding, and Jeffree star they are not things that I tend to not pay much attention to in real life. Social media has an aggregate of data that tells them what I like, what interests me, what keeps my mind occupied. My life outside of these social media outlets is substantially different, a far less glamorous appetite resides on this side of my phone. So I do not believe that my data footprint shows a true articulation of Mo Yarboro, but mearly a hollow shell of my most basic endulgences.
I did think about big data in ways I hadn’t beforein real life as well. As I drove to the gas station not far from my house, which is right across from another nearly identical gas station I wondered. Why do gas stations build right on top of one another, how does big data play a role in business planning? Does big data say that when gas stations build next to One another that there is a increase in traffic flow. Does ability to choose, create consumer satisfaction, and higher revenue?

Tomorrow question: I along with the the masses of the population have “opted in” for the convenience that the Internet has to offer. At what point do we stop exposing our most private information for the sake of convenience? Is there a way to reverse the cycle, or are we too reliant on the convenience that social media brings to the table?