A digital world

The pandemic and serious concerns about the environment have distracted attention from another revolution happening in the world today. The explosion of data flows globally and has set digital platforms that have been overlooked. There are estimates that cross border data flows grew by 112 times from 2008 to 2020.

Digital technologies have allowed the international trade in data to continue replacing traditional goods and services. While the average consumer remains unaware, the use of digital technology has now become more commonplace.

Movies which were once sold through DVDs now stream on digital platforms. Companies like Netflix, Disney and Apple have set up digital platforms that can sell their services worldwide for a fee. In the pre-digital age, the idea that half a dozen companies were monopolizing the transmission of movies would have aroused outcries of monopolies and killing of competition. Only recently Fox Entertainment channels were pulled off from cable tv channels all over Southeast Asia. These channels would now become available in the Disney movie streaming platform.

Newspapers, magazines, books and even research papers are now available online. Fortunately, there are still people like me, who insist on reading books and magazines on the printed paper. However, I must admit that I have online subscriptions to some major newspapers.

Even physical products of the future will become dependent on digital technology as they will need massive amounts of data to be operable. For example, driverless cars and trucks will need complex electronics and software to become widely and safely used.

The pandemic has also been responsible for the tremendous growth of e-commerce. Work at home has become more common and has made even the simplest business operations, like payment of bills, also dependent on digital technologies.

In 2018, before the pandemic, 330 million people made online purchases from other countries. With the closure of foreign travel in many countries, this amount would have increased dramatically during the pandemic.

Governments have recently begun to realize that this flow of data across countries is a source of power and abuse; but it remains largely ungoverned. In the United States and Europe, major companies engaged in this data flow, like Facebook, are now being investigated by government agencies. The objective is to determine how to govern these organizations. In China the fall of Jack Ma is a sign that the Chinese government will not tolerate the unregulated operations of these companies like Alibaba.

Access to data has become the key to economic and political power. It has become the key to commercial success. Several years ago, the most valuable firms in the world included oil and gas firms like Shell and ExxonMobil; consumer goods firms like Procter and Gamble and Unilever; and financial services companies like J.P. Morgan and Citibank. Today the most valuable companies are companies whose business revolves around data technology, like Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook.

The abuse of data privacy by these very few companies that have monopolized data technologies has been a source of worry for most people. That is the reason we are seeing the increase of governments imposing data privacy laws. Another source of concern is the unregulated use of these data channels to spread fake news and even child pornography.

The consensus is that governments must use their powers to control these data channels. The debate is to what extent should they be controlled. China is moving towards total control. In other societies, the issue on the limits of control is still being debated.

One problem in generating public interest in this topic is that many, if not most, people are not even clear about the definition of digital technology. According to the United Nations: “Digital technology definition includes all electronic tools, automatic systems, technological devices that generate, process or store information.” Digital technology has practically replaced what used to be known as analog technology.

Some of the best examples of present day digital technology are websites, online buying and selling; smartphones; block chain; cryptocurrency; cloud computing; voice interfaces or chat bots; video streaming; eBooks; blogs; social media; 3D printing; ATM machines; digital cameras and drones.

It is expected that once the pandemic is over, there will be a surge in businesses upgrading their use of digital technologies.

In formulating business technologies, it is important to differentiate between digitization and digitalization. Digitization means to convert something into a digital format and usually refers to encoding of data and documents. Digitalization means to convert business processes over to use digital technologies instead of analog or offline systems such as paper or whiteboards.

Digitization refers to information while digitalization refers to process.

Digital technologies will only be a prelude to the next technology revolution – artificial intelligence.

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Our writing dates via Zoom:

Final session for adults for 2021: Nov. 13, 2-3:30 p.m. with Criselda Yabes on Discovering your writing voice. Young Writers’ Hangout: Nov. 20, 2-3 pm with poet & Ateneo professor D.M. Reyes.

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