Big Data in the Context of Studying Problems of Modern Society

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the social consequences of the rapid dissemination of big data that gradually leads to the formation of a new phase of the evolutionary development of civilization - a datafied society. It is shown that the main factor in social transformations is datafication, which involves the transition to a quantitative form (into “data”) of all phenomena and aspects of the world around us, even those that were previously understood as purely “qualitative”, not quantifiable: human actions, relationships, desires, moods, etc. In this context, the interpretation of “data” is changing, they cease to be what is given, what exists independently of anything. Today, data is “produced”, “extracted” from social life. Moreover, their production is determined by two factors: 1) the external infrastructure with which they are collected, processed and stored; 2) the specifics of generating their value, including primarily monetization, and in addition, means of state control, cultural production, and civic opportunities. Today, more and more people are talking about the development of a new area of ​​intelligent data analysis, called “life mining”, which means extracting patterns from combined digital footprints left by people on the Internet and predicting real results based on them: future actions and emotional states; restoration of missing information, for example, personal information that a person would not want to make public. The existence of “life mining” tools and their wider application leads to the massive appropriation of social life by those who possess big data, to the formation of the phenomenon of data dictatorship. In this regard, there is an urgent need to involve sociologists in discussions concerning the social consequences of big data, as well as in predicting the possible ways for society to develop, since without this, resistance to those who want to establish a data dictatorship and create a society of unprecedented supervision and control is impossible.