Data can exert a significant influence over your daily life; in fact, it probably has. When the word ‘data’ is mentioned, most of our eyes glaze over; we conjure images of numbers, statistics, or server machines with flickering green lights or running code, which are too large for someone who is not specialising in the area to understand. There is a degree of truth to this, as data in essence is based on facts, figures, numbers, statistics, etc., as well as bearing multifarious ways of representing and analysing them.
But this does not mean that one should eschew having a better understanding the way how quietly it influences our day-to-day life; for example, many professionals, regardless of role or position, have developed a desire to better understand how data shapes real-world decisions and often turn to applied business analytics to develop the practical, industry-ready skills to leverage them. Data does not just have the potential to change our lives; in fact, it has already quietly done so, and let’s examine how it has.
Data as One of the World’s Most Valuable Resources
It is not an exaggeration to say that in the 21st century, data has become the new oil and one of the most valuable resources in the world right now. In fact, it has become so valuable that it has started outstripping every other form of corporate assets in becoming the primary resource and lifeblood of today’s digital economy.
From businesses using data to guide decision-making, predictive analysis and demographic targeting, to the building of entire industries predicated on data, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and automation, as well as the modernisation of supply chains that revolves around collecting real-time data for inventory management and shipping, data is not just a static resource anymore but an active player in cultivating efficiency and creating new jobs.
Data Reshapes Communication, Learning and Consuming Information
The social media algorithms are constantly shaping trends, our opinions and even political beliefs; the news we consume is tailored to our individual preferences and actively influencing the worldviews we share; and education itself is increasingly being personalised for students’ ways of learning by leveraging data, evidently, things that we initially thought as perks such as personalisation and the realisation of a global village, it has become a standard for modern living, and data is has been the main impetus for this.
The health app you use daily, with functions such as being able to detect irregular heartbeats before symptoms appear or adjusting workouts based on your past performance, all of it is powered by data. Even more so with the rise of AI, that food app can predict what you want for dinner tonight. Of course, the power of digital information has improved our daily lives dramatically, but it also has risks. Particularly in the realms of information/media consumption and the ability to get tailored information, they can potentially create echo chambers and disinformation strongholds, which has been a particular concern in recent years.
Data Guiding and Optimising Policy
Smart cities have been rising in recent years, with some even being proposed here in Australia as well, and their functioning is all dependent on data production. Besides smart cities using data for traffic control, energy use or emergency response mechanisms, governments have also been using data information for public safety, census planning, disaster management, as well as predictive policing and surveillance, which has also raised ethical questions and civil liberty issues. Data all informs government policy-making in these areas, and this new method plays a crucial role in mitigating traditional struggles of policy-making, which includes competing subjective framing and views; giving command to concrete evidence rather than intuition avoids all of this.
Of course, this is not just centred in government policy, but includes a whole trove of organisational policy-making as well. As key components of data include trends and patterns, businesses and organisations can leverage them to bolster their position in the market or anywhere more effectively. The research has already shown that data-driven organisations are 23 times more likely to acquire new customers. And conversely, as a consumer, the brand you always shop with will most likely be using data to target your needs or demographic to ensure your continued loyalty to them.
Data in Healthcare and Public Health
The advancements in public health are directly dependent on the advancements made in digital technology, and data information has been an inseparable driver in this progress. From patient insights to continuous monitoring mechanisms (e.g. heart rate, oxygen level, glucose, etc.) can go miles in allowing doctors not only to provide personalised treatment options and increase patient care, but also create effective diagnosis and early detection strategies, and this data-based logic has been combined under the umbrella term of what is now called ‘digital health’. Moreover, data can serve as a mechanism to streamline the already overloaded and overworked healthcare systems of today, whether that be cutting costs or organisational health policymaking, which all lead to improved patient outcomes.
Why Data Literacy?
The presence that data has in modern-day living is all too clear, and this naturally requires data literacy. Just as a literate person knows how to read a text, analyse and extract meaning, and communicate ideas through writing and speech, a data literate person can read, analyse and extract meaning, as well as communicate insights, ideas and conclusions from data and data sets to other people. Data literacy, henceforth, is essentially the capacity to explore, understand and communicate with and in data in meaningful ways. Some of the more technical skills data-literate people can perform include:
- Collecting data
- Cleaning and preparing data
- Data analysis and visualisation
- Managing data
- Programming languages
While non-technical, broad-based skills include critical thinking, research, communication and domain knowledge vis-à-vis data.
Many businesses today obviously have a priority for hiring candidates with data literacy skills, as being data literate is becoming increasingly important for one’s daily life as well. Given that data information has proliferated so far and has changed our lives forever, being data literate can be an important pathway to developing a sense of empowerment in navigating and comprehending the vast landscapes of information that have become an inseparable and unavoidable part of this era.
