How data is becoming the most addictive thing in the world?

We all are addicted to something in this world. More often, it is an experience to which we are addicted. For someone, it could be traveling to a foreign destination, running a marathon or smoking & drinking at a lavish destination. For others, addiction could be materialistic in nature. For instance, it could be for a thing like chocolate – may be a Ferrero Rocher. But as we transcend into the digital age, there is something popping up and sooner or later everyone will be addicted to it. We are living in a world where “capitalism without capital” is the new norm. And if you are thinking how without capital (i.e. without physical assets) someone can have capitalism, it could be through the most powerful thing in this digital world – “Data”.

Data is now intruding into the personal space like never before. It is complimenting us in our life. It is acting as a mirror. And it is motivating us to be unstable and ensuring that we challenge ourselves to capture new heights. On the other hand, when you are addicted to data – and you cannot find it around, you start to procrastinate - even your daily rituals. You are hinged to data and it is acting as a companion in the journey. You are at your best self when you can see data and you are at your worst when you cannot see it.

One and a half year back, I bought a fitness band. It stayed with me for more than a year and then the band got damaged. I have started to use the conventional wristwatch but something was missing in life. I was not able to see how many steps I have walked. There was no one to remind me to walk at least 250 steps every hour. I was not able to track the calories which I was burning. And whether I am making day to day and week to week progress or not was an unknown thing. This was the watershed moment and I figured out that I am addicted to data.

Then comes a more colourful version of fitness band – Fitbit Versa Lite. With new purchase, comes new responsibility and new ambition. Around the same time, I read the book ‘Catalyst’. Though there were many takeaways from the reading, I liked the intriguing question - why great leaders don’t develop a habit of playing football or baseball or cricket in their daily rituals? Why do they don’t opt for team sports and what they do instead? The answer was simple – they choose solo-sports as a habit. They make routine and do it constantly and routinely with perseverance. You cannot play a team sport constantly because there is a dependency on others. Rather they challenge themselves – they make solo-sports their daily ritual. For me, this is the time to incorporate learning into action, to opt for a solo-sport and I choose to run & participate in Marathon.

I registered for Airtel 10 km Hyderabad Marathon and Fitbit was my companion. I started tracking data and fascinated with the form of data visualization it populates as soon as you complete the exercise. I like it when the algorithm put the kilometer wise detail over the layer of GIS and the weekly progress report. The data acted as a mirror and didn’t allow me to stop chasing what I want – in this case, to complete the 10km run with ease.

Then comes the big day, 25th August – Marathon day. The time to put the learning through data, and progress into real action. As I run through the dedicated track, there were thousands of runners and hundreds of volunteers who cheer for you to complete the marathon. The entire atmosphere was full of energy and was giving Goosebumps. Not to forget about the amazing arrangement by the organizers – there were singers, ambulances, police support and points for energy drink, fruit, glucose and water stations. As soon as I complete the marathon, the first thing was to get the news across Fitbit community which have always been inspiring. The members of the community are driven by data and no matter what they don’t forget to inspire others in this connected economy. I believe data-driven tracking empowered me to complete the 10k marathon and to qualify for half marathon & full marathon. I am sure this is just the beginning of many such endeavors.

They say that addiction to anything is bad. But data addiction cannot be measured as good or bad; it is not binary. It can cause fatigue but if used properly, it could create magic. For me, the addiction to data helped me create that necessary trigger which was required. It helped me monitor progress. Infact it is just like project management – you set a target say 10,000 steps per day and it triggers you every time to achieve that target. You complete daily sprint and it automatically share the week-to-week progress as weekly report.

Data is an addiction which is here to stay a lot longer than one can imagine.