Living in a ‘Big Data’ era

Can you guess how much raw information floats around in digital space? Of course not. During the last year alone, for example, it is presumed that the total amount poured into info-communication digital space reached as much as 1.9 zettabytes worldwide.

Not only multimedia content, including broadcast services, online news and the Internet, but also newly-introduced smartphones’ social network services function make it possible for a massive information to be produced and circulated incessantly. Now we are facing a “Big Data” era, in which we cannot easily control the enormous volume of information in traditional ways and systems.

You may not be accustomed to the unit zetta because it surpasses far beyond the kilo (thousand), mega (million) and giga (billion), which are the usually used units in our everyday life. So zetta itself tells us the amount of information drifting in digital space is beyond most people’s imagination.

As you know, in the metric system tera comes after giga, which means trillion. And there follows peta, exa and zetta, on which we are focusing. It goes without saying that as the units proceed one step further, their base starts up a thousand-fold, too. Zetta denotes sextillion, a number that has 21 zeros. In that sense, it is no exaggeration to say that we now live with a deluge of information.

Even at this moment, a lot of information is being produced and is flooding the Internet. We also are participating as consumers or producers. Just by turning on a computer and using a mouse or keyboard, we can automatically acquire membership of the information society.

But you must remember the information is not always useful and informative. From the heap of raw information, we can very often trace untruths and misinformation regardless of its producer’s intention. Such a phenomenon occurs because everyone who is able to pound at the keyboard and click a mouse can post writing on the Internet without any restriction.

More regrettably, there are people who spread malicious and backbiting rumors on purpose. Especially smartphones and other SNS devices, although they have many merits, are likely to be mobilized to hurt somebody by proliferating unsavory gossip. Versatile info-communication systems and equipment are often used as dangerous weapons to inflict injury on others.

Thus it cannot be denied false information accounts for a considerable portion among the aforementioned 1.9 zettabytes produced last year. Being considered the future generation’s crude oil, Big Data must be refined to filter the impurities. We cannot assure ourselves that we have never contaminated the Internet. Maybe we did sometimes without knowing it.

If we can extract true information, it will show the direction our society is proceeding in as well as how and why it is moving. Theoretically, it never seems difficult to anticipate how gasoline prices will move tomorrow just through sales information passing through nationwide gas stations along with the amount being produced in oil refineries.

In other words, it may be compared to assembling a cutting-edge machine by searching out components and bolts scattered in an extensive sand field. That’s why we compare information to crude oil. And as proof, the database market is already practically commercialized in transportation and meteorology, in part by using such various pieces of information.

But the problem is the floating information in digital space is so much that common capacity computers cannot deal with it effectively, which is a typical phenomenon of the Big Data era. Furthermore, the information amount grows by 60 percent year after year. Needless to say, false information will increase accordingly.

How about deciding to not post irresponsible information from today?

The writer is a freelance columnist. Contact him at gracias1234@naver.com. <The Korea Times/Hu Young-sup>

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