What is the importance of big data in our everyday lives? Do we contribute to it?

Big data is rather new, in the world of technology. No, it is not something, which is invented yesterday, but big data has risen since the end of the last decade, and now, everywhere you go, and all the tasks you do, contribute a little or lot to big data. Since big data is an integral part of the Internet ecosystem, being a netizen, you should know, how big data can influence our lives in some way or the other. Anything, which is good enough, also has its dark side, and the same goes for big data! Yes, big data can be used against us! But that doesn’t mean, working with Big data should come to an end, as Big data is the future. From sales to marketing, and from machine learning to artificial intelligence, Big data is used almost everywhere extensively. But, how big is big data! It is big! Yes big! This article is not meant for discussing the challenges and characteristics of big data, but, for the sake of convenience, I would say, it is in the range of Petabytes and Yottabytes. I don’t think, I need extra elaboration.

Benefits of big data, in every sphere of life

big data and its importance in our everyday lives including Benefits

Before diving into the BigData benefits for business and its other advantages, please have a quick look at what the term Big Data and Big data analytics refers…

What is big data?

Big Data term came into existence when our digital device and software start generating data in large volumes. Due to increment in the sensing and other Internet of things devices such as mobile devices, Software logs, cameras, microphones, frequency identification (RFID) readers and wireless sensor networks. The data generation and the technology those stored that information get roughly double in every 40 months as per the Wikipedia.

So the process of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analysis methods that extract value from data is known as “Big Data” In other words the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured data generated by different business and other sectors on a day-to-day basis can be described as Big data. For more information see: Wikipedia

 

What is big data analytics?

Big data analytics is a process to analyze a large volume of data in order to extract the valuable information that can use to prove the facts and figures of the market trends, customer preference, helps in combat crime, reveal the business trends and other useful information that can help organizations make more-informed business decisions.

 

Big data for business planning, and marketing

As far as business is concerned, there are a lot of advantages or benefits of big data in businesses. Yes, a lot! Benefits of Big data in business is not limited to online business, as it is extensively used as a mighty and powerful tool in offline business as well! How! Let’s find out!

 

Big Data in Online Businesses

We all come through a number of advertisements, when we go through our news feed on Facebook, or browse any of our favorite websites. On closer observation, you will reveal, the advertisements you see, are, in some way or the other, related to your browsing habits. It means, you will get things, which you are interested in, instead of ads on conventional media, where will be forced to see dandruff removing shampoo ads, when you are looking for the next best smartphone to buy. How that is done! It is done by tracking your browsing habits and eventually showing things relevant to your search data. It might be a breach to your privacy, but come on, you are on the internet, and you can’t scream for companies taking such small amount of data, and that too, for your good.

How, big data help in online marketing is known to a number of techy guys I know, but how it affects offline businesses! Let’s find out!

 

Big Data in Offline businesses

Living in a small city, you might complain about the absence of your favorite food chain like KFC, or your favorite clothing store like Pantaloons in your locality. You might need those stores, but not everybody need that. Here in lies the importance of big data in offline businesses, as well. All the leading retail store chains do a market research before they open their store in some locality. They will only open the store in your city, when most people living in your city, need those things, which are sold in that store, and that too at a reasonable price.

But, how market data is collected! In the collection of market data, for market analysis, as well, big data plays an important role. Big data is used in this case to collect information about the likes and dislikes of the persons living in that city through searching behavior on the internet or something else. From time to time, you Google might even ask suggestions from you, about your locality, and with your GPS, it can even track the places, which you are going. If it is found, most people from your city is visiting a different city to visit a particular store, Google will eventually understand, yes, that particular store is necessary for your city. It is somewhat in this way, the big data platforms play around with our data for something productive.

Google will also give you credits if you complete some short surveys, which eventually collect information about, how much you like or dislike certain services. It eventually contributes to big data and also turns out to be helpful in doing market analysis and market planning. You can use those credits to purchase Google products. Find out how to get that, here.

Thus, big data is also beneficial for market planning. Once the supermarket chain finds, it will be a good idea to open a store in your city, with the data collected, you might get your favorite store in your locality. It is even one of the big data benefits for consumers.

Big data is also used to track the demand of a certain product in a particular market, and eventually decide the price, depending on the demand. Through Bigdata, sales can be analyzed, which can eventually be used to restock products, depending upon, which has the highest demand. Thus, big data is one of the biggest solutions for businesses and marketing.

 

Big data for Government

Though not evident in India, Big data is one of the most used tools by the Government, in the western countries. Back in the time, when Obama became the president of the USA, a lot of data from the citizens were collected to make sure, everything is working perfectly before the elections. That is not the limit of the big data, used by Government.

 

Better services to citizens

Bigdata is also used as a tool to comprehend the things, the citizens are interested in to roll off the best services at the most appropriate time. Listening to the demands of the citizens is one of the biggest responsibilities of the Government, and if that is done through big data, real-time data can be collected, which can eventually be helpful for the government to improve the services, as well. Apart from the demands, Bigdata can also be used to keep a track on the daily habits of the citizens, which can also help the government to understand the problems faced by the people in the country, which can also lead to fruitful outcomes.

 

Better transport options

‘Look before you leave’. Yes, it is something, which we come across, almost every day, and it is by Google. As Google has a lot of traffic data, it can also be collected by the government to find out the areas, which has the highest traffic, and that data can be utilized to dispatch more transport options to that area. Data can also be collected about the surge in traffic, at a particular area, during some time of the year, which can eventually be helpful to offer more transport service for that route, at that time of the year. Isn’t that cool!

I am not telling, all the things are mentioned here, are being done at present. But who can say, it can be the future! It is the scope of big data, and on correct analysis, the sky can be the limit, for a government, if they start using Bigdata as a tool for development.

 

Big data for better health

Presently, there are a number of drug manufacturers, who are trying to find a connection between different medicines and diseases, which is a big leap for getting better health in the future. A lot of data is collected from those researches, which are eventually used to manufacture drugs, with the sole target to get a better quality of health in the future. With Big data in the world of healthcare, a number of doctors can also get united, which will also be helpful to understand the effectiveness of certain therapies and examinations, for the purpose of treating different diseases.

If the things are carried out in a proper manner, by analyzing the data properly, a number of chronic and infectious diseases like cancer, hepatitis, and other similar diseases can easily be coped with, which will eventually a big success for the healthcare industry.

It is also because of that, you can find a number of third-party assistants for your smartphone, which can prescribe your certain medications for your everyday troubles like a headache, toothache, cuts, and burns, etc. Though they are not cent percent accurate all the time, but with minor improvements, it can actually offer a great service.

Once a medication is provided to you, and you get positive results from it, you will surely give a review. Depending upon the review or rating, which you give, the effectiveness of the drug can also be analyzed, and it can also be found out, under what circumstances, you will get the best results, when you use the drug. Thus, there are a number of ways, big data can be used to get better health.

 

Big data for getting justice and for combating crime

All human beings have a certain thinking pattern. The thinking pattern of a human being can be observed by the decisions a person take when he or she is online. The things a person say is also a reflection of what the person thinks. Those data can also be analyzed and can be compared with the thinking pattern of criminals of different sorts, which can eventually be helpful to analyze whether the person is having the criminal mentality or not. Though, it is a matter of future, but it can be done. There are also other ways, how big data can be used for combating crime and get justice.

When a person is trying to save himself or herself from the court of law, he must be communicating with others through various social networking websites, and can also use different websites, which also collect data about its users. Those data can eventually be helpful to find out, whether the person is telling something true in the court of law.

Big data can also be utilized to track any kind of frauds, as activities can easily be tracked and compared with different patterns of fraud, which take place almost regularly. Everything about getting justice of big data and combating crime is hardly utilized nowadays, due to lack of proper infrastructure or some other challenges of big data analytics. But if I talk about the possibilities, it is possible, and can also be the future.

 

Negative aspects of big data

Anything which is great also has its negative aspects. Yes, there are disadvantages of big data, if it is compromised to wrong hands. Big data is all about a lot of data, which we contribute to the Internet regularly, directly or indirectly. It is because of our data, we use the pronoun big before the term data. Though, all the companies try to provide maximum security to the user data and safeguard it, but if it is leaked to wrong hands, a lot of facts about normal people can be compromised, which can be eventually used against those users, keeping apart exploitation of the same data for different purposes.

When a lot of data, which is associated with our habits, and everyday activities is compromised to wrong hands, it can be misused by those, who want to use social engineering in an improper way. Almost all the companies collect a lot of data about us, which we don’t want to give unless we are compelled to.

They include different kinds of data, like bank account details, IDs, health details and a lot of other things. In spite of that, most such data is collected by big companies, and the negatives of big data arise, when it is used for something else, apart from doing good business, and for the advantage of mankind.

As I said, big data can be used for healthcare, improper use of big data can also lead to the opposite of it, and that will be one of the biggest disadvantages of big data in healthcare. As the data collected, can be used to recognize, which drugs are highly compatible with numerous diseases, under different circumstances, Bigdata can also be utilized by those bad guys to find out drugs, which are not compatible with certain diseases, with certain health parameters. Once that is known, the same medicine on consumption can lead to numerous troubles, or can even lead to casualties, in the worst case.

 

More data will be generated in the future

Who contribute to big data! Yes, it is we, who contribute to big data, and the contribution takes place through the devices, connected to the internet, which includes, our computers, laptops, smartphones, and other gadgets. IoT and IoE have not taken over completely though.

The size of Bigdata is growing every day, and in the coming future, the size will increase even faster, once numerous machines and IoT enable devices to participate in the game of big data. With the Internet of Everything or IoE, and Machine to machine communication or M2M, big data can be used to understand the usage pattern of different machines. It can eventually be helpful to offer better functionalities of the machines manufactured.

But the security of the data should always be the elementary point to take care when there is a mammoth amount of data, available to the companies. There is no doubt, a large amount of data can be utilized to present the best services, but the leakage of the data at the same time can also lead to impenetrable problems.

Thus, there are pros and cons of big data, just like other technologies, which are used regularly. Though, yes, the cons of Bigdata is a matter to ponder, as it can lead to the biggest troubles, but with improved security, the negativities of Bigdata can be eradicated to a big extent. I am sure, the companies, which use big data for different purposes, will surely be improving the security. They should also pay respect to the user data collected so that another incident like Facebook data leak doesn’t take place.

Hope, the above information about the importance of big data in everyday life, was informative to you. In which other fields, you think big data can be used. Feel free to make me know, in the comment section down below.

 

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