Big Data, and The Clues to Who I Am.
As I wake, I turn over to silence the alarm on my phone which has waited patiently for me as I slept. My phone is my first, last and constant companion throughout the day and is both my outlet and inlet of data. After unlocking my phone, I que up the Spotify playlist which I had recently created, my first flare of data into the large network. I know that each song in the shuffle is ordered based on when I added it, as well as the songs popularity in the larger Spotify community. I don’t care; I only need a quick beat and catchy tune to help me wake up and get through the morning.
It’s Saturday, so I take the time to check Wolfware to see what homework I can work on, and then head to Youtube to catch up on my subscriptions. My Gmail account is linked to my Youtube account, which sends alerts to my phone whenever one of the Youtubers I follow uploads a new video. Each time I go straight to the recommended video, it just affirms that the recommendations are working and that that particular Youtuber is popular. You skim the other recommended videos that Youtube knew would be exactly what I wanted to see.
However, I get an alert on my Google Calendar, so conveniently tied to my phone, once again keeping me on track with life, reminding me that I have to meet someone soon. I’m not sure of the address, and so as I settle into my car, I pull up Google Maps on my phone and turn on the GPS. I am now on the grid, being tracked in real time, if not sooner than before.
Finally, when my day is done, I unwind with my latest past time, an online game call War Frame. As I bullet-jump through space, past enemies and their endless stream of bullets, I receive notifications that my friends are also online. In between missions, I get alerts of multiplayer missions in progress that I could join in and reap the rewards and experience from. My War Frame account is tied to my Steam account, allowing Valve, Inc. to easily record my data and every micro-transaction I make.
From my data, you can probably get a rough estimate of my age, based on the songs I listen to, the Youtubers that I follows and the games that I play. From my transaction history on Steam, you can probably tell what type of games I like, and whether or not I prefer to buy games on sale or as soon as they come out. If you could find the transaction data tied to the card that I have registered with my Steam account, then you would be able to learn so much more. Soo much is tangled and tied together, in such small and such significant ways. I just wonder when the games I play start effecting my employment opportunities. People are already able to share their Playstation and Xbox achievements on Facebook, and so it makes me wonder if this is already a factor that employers consider. Now that I think of it, when Pokemon Go! comes out later this year, I wonder how much more data I’ll be creating.
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I didn’t even think of everything my gmail account is linked. As I’m typing this response my phone just alerted to me to the fact I received an email.
I’m going to finish my comment here as my computer just posted my comment when I wasn’t finished. Thinking about it, I didn’t realize how reliant I am on Google and the apps the company has put out. I’m constantly using my Google calendar and my Gmail app on my phone. Those are things I do in my daily life I don’t even really think about. I will definitely have to think about this when I unwind from technology next time.
It’s incredible when you look back on the foot print you leave each and every day you spend on the Internet. But what’s more incredible is the idea that the foot prints you leave serve as a path for social networking sites to key in on you interests. My YouTube account is much like yours in that there is consistent content connected to my interests. Pretty much all I watch on you tube is how it’s made, and they know what I’ve watched, what I’ve searched and at what times I watch.
Thanks for the post. You definitely point out here how tied together all this data can be, even within the single eco-system of Google. Between searches, mail, calendar, maps, and documents, a significant portion of our modern life is connected to Google.
Google is such a big part of so many things we do online. I’ve always been amazed with all of the features Google has. It’s nice to have all your information and events and such in one place, but do you ever think this could cause problems if Google becomes untrustworthy such as it has in the past? Just an interesting thing to think about. I enjoyed your post!