Now showing items tagged data

In the digital age, the adage stands: if you are not paying for the product, you are the product. In an era where business marketing, sales and influence are increasingly personalised and driven by insights into consumers, there is no product of more value than your personal data. The quantified self movement and the general focus on health, fitness and beauty in recent years has brought about a proliferation of apps and devices focussed on improving these areas of our lives. However, more and more it is seeming as if our smartphones and wearable devices know us better than we know ourselves.

In the 20th Century world, personalisation was a luxury only some could afford. After Industrial processes took over and assembly lines made cheap mass production possible, the personalisation of a product was not in high demand, and when it was required, the price reflected its uniqueness.

If you had told your grandparents that in the future the currency of the world, the power of big companies and the division of wealth would largely centre around the movement of an invisible object, they would never have believed you. And yet it is increasingly becoming the case with the unstoppable use of data in the modern world.