Data, will it drown us?

In a search for creative, technical and/or scientific answers we rely on data to attain the knowledge necessary.  There may be cause for worry in that we may be oversaturated with data with overwhelming amounts of research and data collection ensuing.  A factor that magnifies the cause for worry is how data is interpreted in a subjective manner, leading the followers of data in a specific stream of knowledge.  But this should not be anything we humans should be incapable of handling.

Think of humans and their relationship to data as language.  Consider information functioning as an idea or concept, knowledge functioning as the word or text being used.  The understanding of the message sent by data visualization is the understanding of text in language.  It’s automatically subjective but to convey the information in speech won’t be any better.  Peter Hall says in his work, “Critical Visualization,” that “data itself is never neutral; it is collected for a reason, and processed and presented for specific purposes.  In other words, ‘there is no such thing as raw data.’” (130).  This echoes the use of words and conversations as people choose what words they truly listen to and choose the words they in turn speak to express their ideas.  Thus, there can be no such thing as a raw idea.  Despite the downside of data reaching a subjective expression like language always does, it remains to be considered something to truly be a cause for worry.  Mankind has found a way to grow and thrive in a world of language in regulating it, so it must be familiar grounds as there must be a similar way of regulating and thriving in a world driven by data visualization.  It may drown us at some points but we will find a way to change our understanding of it to create it as something to support us as we have with language.  It won’t seem trivial if it’s treated the same way humans treat language, an act that is utterly mundane as it occurs at every instance of human interaction.  Data may act as a support just as language has in the history of mankind.

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Reference

Hall, Peter. "Critical Visualization." Design and the Elastic Mind (2008): 121-31. Web.