Cleaning House in Our Digital Universe

Today’s world is consumed with modern conveniences. Digital communications and services are definitely no stranger to this and actually are now on the leading edge of such accessibilities.  As I sit back and think about how we do things now versus how we did them ten and twenty years ago, it seems surreal how fast we got to this point. Most people just sit at their computers, tablets and phones and access their internet, apps and mobile services as part of everyday life. Some don’t even think twice about all the data that is required to handle our everyday business. To tell you the truth, it makes me have heart palpitations just trying to conceptualize what and where all this data space is.

I read an article that put this data thing into real perspective. The article references Moore’s Law, which pretty much states that data is doubling every two years. According to the article, in 1995 only 20 petabytes of total hard drive space was manufactured in that entire year. Today, Google processes more than 24 petabytes of information every single day. What does this mean? Well, from what I can gather, it means that we have moved into a very fast evolving digital world. For communications, this means you have to be on the top of your game. Keeping up with Jones’ takes on a whole new meaning. You have to have the latest, greatest and fastest to send and receive information. In 2011, EMC Corporation announced the results of its study “Extracting Value from Chaos.” In a nutshell the results again showed that the world’s information is more than doubling every two years. It recorded that 1.8 zettabytes were to be created and replicated in 2011, which shows a faster growth than what Moore’s Law predicted. So, what does 1.8 zettabytes look like? EMC broke it down like this:

·     Every person in the United States tweeting 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years nonstop

·     Every person in the world having over 215 million high-resolution MRI scans per day

·     Over 200 billion HD movies (each 2 hours in length)—would take 1 person 47 million years to watch every movie 24x7

·     The amount of information needed to fill 57.5 billion 32GB Apple iPads. With that many iPads we could:

o   Create a wall of iPads, 4,005-miles long and 61-feet high extending from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida.

o   Build the Great iPad Wall of China—at twice the average height of the original.

o   Build a 20-foot high wall around South America.

o   Cover 86% of Mexico City.

o   Build a mountain 25-times higher than Mt. Fuji.

I am really not smart enough to comprehend what all this means and how it affects digital space. I’m like most users in the fact that I just want my internet and apps to work and work fast.

Now, with the ever expanding convergence of digital media from television, radio to cell phones and social networking, how do we decide what is important and real? Should all this digital space be cluttered with random thoughts and false information? How can it and should it be monitored? With the advancements of technology and the unlimited opportunity to get and stay connected, I believe it has encouraged our society to take for granted where all this information lives. Data centers that are all over the globe are known as “server farms” and  in the United States, it’s estimated that server farms, which house Internet, business and telecommunications systems and store the bulk of our data, consume close to 3 percent of our national power supply. Worldwide, they use more power annually than Sweden. Now this means our digital world is colliding with our real physical world. Are we being counterproductive with our ego-friendly idea that being electronic is greener and cleaner?

While there tends to be unlimited space in the digital universe to voice opinions and give everyone an opportunity to be a reporter, do business or just be entertained, how do we weed through all the information that is now right at our fingertips? In an article published by Shelley Podolny “The Digital Pileup” she stated “Despite the conveniences our online lives provide, we end up being buried by data at home and at work. An overabundance of data makes important things harder to find and impedes good decision-making. Efficiency withers as we struggle to find and manage the information we need to do our jobs. Estimates abound on how much productivity is lost because of information overload.” I for one can attest to the fact it is hard for me to hit delete when it comes to my personal and work emails, files and other data. But, in order for my electronic devices to run faster without purchasing  or requesting more space, cleaning my digital house is a must. Being a digital hoarder ultimately can be detrimental. Since our world is becoming more and more digitized, I believe the need for data-reduction strategies should be part our ego-friendly lifestyles.

So, in our quest for more and more of the latest, greatest, faster and overall best digital service we can obtain, just keep in mind all the data that is flooding into your personal, work and national /worldwide data servers. While we now think that all this space is unlimited, history has only shown our initial understanding of such concepts can eventually become greatly under or overestimated. The next time you hit save or submit, think about how you can manage your information better.  Take a moment and consider all the dead data you have or contribute to. Consider cleaning it up so that you don’t suffocate in your own digital world.

References:

EMC News: Worl' Data More Than Doubling Every Two Years—Driving Big Data Opportunity, New IT Roles. (n.d.). retrieved from http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2011/20110628-01.htm

The Moore's Law of Big Data - National Instruments. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51649/en/

Podolny, S. (2011, March 12). Data Overload Has Economic Costs - NYTimes.com. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13podolny.html?_r=1