Mobile Phones Don’t Lie!

Mobile technology has tremendous potential in comprehending the pattern of human life by analyzing digital traces

You are well aware of an adage, ‘Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are,’ this can be slightly tweaked as ‘Tell me your mobile number and I will tell you who you are,’ in this digital world. Do you deny that mobile offers extensive information about our lives both individually and collectively? This mobile technology has tremendous potential to comprehend the pattern of human life, in understanding of ourselves, organizations and society, and by analyzing digital traces through sensors in mobile phones, cars, security cameras, RFID readers, GPS technology, etc. And this is termed as ‘Reality Mining.’

Reality Mining is defined as the ‘collection and analysis of machine sensed environmental data pertaining to human social behavior in order to identify predictable patterns of behavior.’ Massachusetts Institute of technology’s (MIT) media labs revealed reality mining in one of its largest mobile phone projects that was attempted in academia. It can provide accurate information about what people do, where they hang out or travel, and with whom they communicate from the device. It has the potential to map social networks automatically and discover people with different behavior patterns.

Reality mining of behavioral data is just beginning. Cell phones and smartphones can continuously monitor person’s motor activity, social interactions, sleep patterns, and other health indicators as well.

Opportunities

Reality mining can be a great tool to track terrorists as mobile phone networks can identify unusual patterns of movement and communication. GPS-enabled mobile phones and tracking devices are installed on commercial vehicles to monitor traffic conditions. It facilitates in tracking of realtime traffic congestion data.

Businesses can leverage the data to be more profitable as the phone can gather data on spending patterns. It can help companies to boost inter-office cooperation. Nvent planners who manage multi-million dollar conventions and conferences can avail the data and make the best out of it. Telecom companies can analyze the service usage and can enhance customer service.

Reality mining has the ability to contribute immensely towards healthcare. By gathering health related information through mobiles, they can predict disease outbreaks. Pith the aid of audio or motion sensors, changes in the nervous system can be deducted and this information could be used to screen depression.

Can Be Tricky

Undoubtedly, technologies do not lie and reality mining certainly provides an authentic information about users. And mobile will record everything from users physical activity to conventional cadences, though they offer potential threat to individual’s privacy. In some point in time, accumulating personal information will raise several questions. Thus, industry and government ought to work on the legal and ethical framework regarding data.

If data goes into wrong hands, information could be utilized for plotting. Pho should hold the ownership of the massive data collected using reality mining would be a multi-million dollar question. Industry is yet to delineate about the usage of technology. This unstructured data has to be structured and utilized for the good of the society. Tech industry has to create right algorithms to process this horse power and exabytes of collected data.