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They've Got Your Number by Stephen Baker (view source)
Revision as of 16:26, 20 November 2009
, 16:26, 20 November 2009no edit summary
It's 2009 and with technology zooming ahead at a startling rate, millions of pieces of data are being gathered about each and every one of us on a daily basis. From the websites you visit to how long you spend there and the ads you click on, from the regularity with which you buy cereal and caviar, either alone or in the same shop, to your opinions on the important (politics) and less important (deodorant) issues of the day, you provide an unthinkable amount of information to anyone who is prepared to listen, without even thinking about it. For a long time this has provided a rich but untapped data source, sitting idle for those with the resources or skills to analyse it, and now that time has come.
Did you know, for example, that there are people whose sole purpose in life (at least from 9-5) is to build and refine massive, number crunching machines that pour pore over vast streams of data at the speed of light and pick out the subtle patterns from it all, providing answers to questions you've never bothered to think about: How much would a shop have to lower the price to tempt shoppers of a certain age or income to switch from Coke to Pepsi? Does the time a cow spends snoozing in the shade affect the quality of the meat it will give a year down the line? Can changes in the number of words a person regularly uses be an accurate predictor of early onset Alzheimer's? Does your definition of the word 'justice' indicate a firm political allegiance, or mark you out as potential useful swing voter?
This book, split into sections which focus on shopping, terrorism, medicine and voting among others, takes us on a whirlwind tour of this emerging new field, and how it relates to each and every one of us. Because, whether we like the idea or not, there are people out there who monitor our every move. They might not know our names or shoe sizes, but they know which neighbourhoods we live in, what we spend our money on, how we relax at the weekends, even what our blood pressure has looked like over the last few readings. Using all this information, they can and do pull together profiles, and batch us in with other people with similar values, income levels or lifestyles (healthy or otherwise). Then the fun really starts, as everything from in-store price promotions to mail shots and newspaper adverts are then targeted to reach the right people with the right message. It takes bog standard market research to a whole new level, and it's either fascinating or scary, depending on how you look at it.
The chapter on medicine was one of the most interesting for me, but also perhaps one of the most unreal at this time. Predictive analytics is a fascinating area, but the idea that certain illnesses can be predicted is still a bit of a fantasy at present. The chapter on online dating which followed, perhaps a little illogically, was also intriguing as it examined the science of attraction and the idea of a formula for matchmaking ideal partners.
Baker writes with journalistic flare flair and the book is well structured, engaging and suitably simple that even the most data illiterate of us can understand it. After all, it's not so much about the numbers, per se, as what those numbers represent. It has a bit of an American angle to it, but that doesn't make it less relevant to us on this side of the pond, since the concepts are similar, even if we're not, as yet, quite as obsessive about some of the areas such as health insurance eligibility or premiums.
The book poses a lot of questions, but provides answers to the vast majority, and food for though with the remainder. The readable style had me ploughing through the pages quickly, and each chapter brought fresh insights into an area I'd really not thought much about before. What this book won't do, however, is tell you all the inside secrets. You'll learn about the various different companies who feast on our data, and the various different things they use it for, but just like a magician, they don't reveal their secrets. But, while you might not understand the finer points of the complex computer coding involved, you're still left pondering the implications of it all.