Living With Big Data

The day I recorded all of the things I did that would relate to big data, I noticed that I use a lot more of them than I thought. My day started off by googling information on India for a project I was working on. I then used information from the Wikipedia site on India to find another article on a different site. I do this to find relevant information without having to wade through a bunch of other articles that have nothing to do with what I am working on.

I then got an alert for my Google calendar about an upcoming assignment. I went from there to check my emails on my Gmail account. Once there, I responded to some emails and wrote a few of my own. I had a couple of ad emails advertising sales in some of my favorite stores, which I promptly deleted because I have no money.

I then logged onto YouTube and the homepage brought up recommendations for videos I had already watched. I picked a playlist that was advertised to listen to while I did my homework. I always like to do that because some of the songs I haven’t heard before and that’s how I find some of my favorite songs.

Then I went on to CBS news.com to check the weather for the week. I think it is good to prepare for whatever kind of weather we may have. This especially applies because we are supposed to get snow later on this week. In the sidebar, other articles were advertised and I clicked on one that looked interesting. It had to do with Duke being under investigation and I read to find out what was going on.

Last but not least, I ended my day by watching some recommendations on Netflix. Even though I kind of slept through it. I like checking the recommendations and the shows that are trending to see what’s new.

I think a lot of times we don’t realize how much we rely on the information that we get because of big data nowadays. Through this project, I learned that I am addicted to Google and YouTube. I am a pretty curious person anyway and these platforms allow me to indulge that curiosity. But, since I also use the same platforms for my schoolwork and just for every day life, I don’t think it’s possible to opt out of being a part of big data. How is the future going to change our access to big data?