Big Data: You Have No Idea How Much It Will Change Your Life

Futurist Juan Enriquez on the mind-blowing changes that Big Data is about to unleash on your business, your health, and life in general.

Flickr photo courtesy of Luckey_Sun

Most modern humans are now attempting to cram more data into their heads in a single day than most of our ancestors did during entire lifetimes. In the 15 minutes it takes you to read this essay, the amount of information being generated by the human race will have expanded by about 20 petabytes, equivalent to about three times the amount of information currently in the Library of Congress, or about one-half of all written works from the beginning of recorded history in all languages. The worlds total data is doubling every two years.

Its not just what humanity is collectively generating thats overwhelming us; its what we, as individuals, attempt to digest daily. Every year we try to cram in, read, understand, and remember at least 5 percent more words than the year before. That means that instead of coping with a mere 100,000 words per day five years ago, we are now coping with more than 130,000--plus billions of compounding bits. Even what used to be the calming act of looking at the stars has been transformed: Within weeks of its launch, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey satellite collected more astronomical data than had all of mankind in its entire history.

From 'I Think I'm Sure' to 'I Know and Can Prove It'

We are shifting from a world in which we know, because we sampled a little and extrapolated a lot, into a world in which we know--where all data is collected, analyzed, and stored. We are all becoming citizens of the new realm of truly Big Data.

As we transition from sampling and polling to having a complete census of enormous data sets, we also transition from I think Im sure to I know it, and I can prove it. For instance, Google has created a census of every word published since 1500. We now know exactly who used more than 500 billion words, in more than five million books. And we can trace the specific use, frequency, and context of every one of those words and phrases. Thus we know the words love and war battled for frequency of usage from 1800 through 1914. (Love usually triumphed.) Since 1914, war has been the overwhelming victor. And the word sex? For better or worse, its been steadily gaining on the ever-declining use of love.

All of this is taking place within a massive and explosive evolution in how we use, store, and transmit information. In 1986, only 6 percent of the worlds data was digital, and wwwwas still three years away. There was no Google. Today, more than 99 percent of the worlds written words, images, music, and data are transmitted in the two-letter Boolean alphabet of 1s and 0s. Other than perhaps the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago, no event in human history has ever generated as much wealth and changed as many lives as this transition into a digital world.

The Electronic Tattoo You Can't Erase