Moore's Law on Steroids

This week our readings covered digital technologies and media convergence. I found the readings to be interesting because I never thought twice about the amount of data we produce and what it takes to make our devices to run seamlessly. Due to the progress of technology, various different types of media are combining into one single media. Smartphones are a great example of how one device can deliver several media platforms. It amazes me how you can read the newspaper, watch television, listen to the radio, search the internet and so much more, all from one device. Searching the internet is also becoming a thing of the pat. Today we have app's for just about everything allowing one-touch, instant access. Consumers are choosing their dedicated platforms over the web because they fit better into their lives.

The ability to send, share and receive right at your fingertips, contributes to the endless information stored in our digital universe. Moore’s law states that the power of technology hardware doubles approximately every two years. The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, whose prediction has proven to be true for almost half a century. The music we download, the messages we tweet, this blog I’m writing all require data storage. New technology such as the I-phone and I-pad has made it easier for individuals to create and share information digitally. The volume of information continues to grow relentlessly creating digital chaos, also known as “Big Data”.

A study by EMC Corporation measured and forecasted the amount of digital information created and copied annually. The study found that the world’s information is more than doubling every two years. In 2011, 1.8 zettabytes were created and replicated. The article Worl' Data More Than Doubling Every Two Years—Driving Big Data Opportunity, New IT Roles gave some great examples of equivalents of 1.8 zettabytes of data to help you put things into perspective:

• Every person in the United States tweeting 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years nonstop 
• Every person in the world having over 215 million high-resolution MRI scans per day
• Over 200 billion HD movies (each 2 hours in length)-would take 1 person 47 million years to watch every movie 24x7
• The amount of information needed to fill 57.5 billion 32GB Apple iPads. With that many iPads we could:
• Create a wall of iPads, 4,005-miles long and 61-feet highh extending from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida
• Build the Great iPad Wall of China-at twice the average height of the original
• Build a 20-foot high wall around South America
• Cover 86% of Mexico City
• Build a mountain 25-times higher than Mt. Fuji         

Media has evolved so much that IT professionals need to make changes to data in order for everything to operate seamlessly. More data requires more storage, which requires more IT professionals. EMC’s study reports that the skills, experience and resources are not keeping the pace to manage the data. Over the next decade (by 2020), IT departments worldwide will experience:

• 10X the number of servers (virtual and physical)
• 50X the amount of information to be managed 
• 75X the number of files or containers that encapsulate the information in the digital universe, which is growing even faster than the information itself as more and more embedded systems, such as sensors in clothing, in bridges, or medical devices. 
• 1.5X the number of IT professionals available to manage it all. 

Technological changes are creating a challenge for data experts. More data does not always equal more value. More data is making it difficult to extract meaning from too much data. Decluttering our digital lives is important to protect us from the digital dirt that may live out there.

Adding information to the digital universe leaves a digital footprint. A digital footprint is a trail of your digital interactions. Your digital footprint is your identity. Everything from your name, age, address, sites you have searched, things that you have shared or purchased online leave a trail of what you have done digitally. Unlike the footprints I made in our recent snowstorms, these footprints live somewhere out in cyberspace and can last forever. My college friends and I always say “thank God we didn’t have Facebook while we were in college”. Not that we were extremely wild and crazy in college, but our digital footprints would have been the last things on our minds. We would have been careless with what we posted and shared. Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital existence and are more careful about what they share. Educators are increasingly teaching their students to be cyber smart. A negative digital image can affect your relationships, entrance to a university, and employment.

Pew Research has found that more than half of all adult internet users have used a search engine to follow others’ footprints. When asked about eight different groups of people one might search for online—ranging from family and friends to romantic interests and business colleagues—53% of adult internet users said they had looked for information connected to at least one of these groups.

• Most are casually curious in their searches for others. Just 7% of those who have searched for information on key people in their lives report doing so on a regular basis.
• Users are most likely to search for someone they have lost touch with. Fully 36% of adult internet users say they have used a search engine to find information about someone from their past.
• 19% of adult internet users have searched for information about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors.
• 11% of adult internet users say they have searched online for information about someone they are thinking about hiring or working with.
• 9% of online adults say they have searched online for information about someone they are dating or in a relationship with. Perhaps due to safety concerns, online women tend to do their dating homework more than online men.

While you are researching information about a potential employer, they are researching you right back. According to a survey from CareerBuilder , one in five employers search social networking sites for information about job applicants. 

It is important to think about what we are contributing to our digital universe before we share. Is it digital clutter? Do you want it stored somewhere forever? How much data space will be required? Would you share with your future employer?