There’re lots of people who closely associate data with privacy issues, data leaks, and profit maximization techniques. Also, terms like data science, analytics, statistics, databases etc are ones that most people associate with the professional world exclusively. However, all these and many of their associated ones aren’t meant for data science professionals only. In reality, most people experience the role of data science in their day-to-day lives and in almost every situation. From new friend suggestions by Facebook to Google’s help to complete a search phrase to television shows predicted by Netflix in accordance to your preferences, and many more – data science is being used by common people in almost every situation.
We often praise the high-tech device or the high-end technology once we leverage its abilities, failing to acknowledge the role of data science in making them happen. In this post, we’ve jotted down some of the most situations where everyone experiences the role of data science.
Here’s how we experience the role of data science in our daily life.
Entertainment
Thanks to data science technologies, platforms like Spotify and Netflix have taken entertainment to another level. From the music you prefer to the shows you want to watch, everything is influenced by data. Netflix develops and curates highly targeted shows by extracting customer preference and behavior patterns from their databases. It customizes the watchlist in accordance with the hottest actors, genres etc by leveraging customer data and viewing habits. Spotify also taps into customer data to customize the weekly playlist especially according to the preferences of individual users.
Internet search
Almost all of us frequently use something like ‘just Google it’ whenever someone gets stuck with something. The phrase has become ubiquitous, but we often fail to recognize the role of data science that’s making it possible. All the search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, Ask etc leverage data science algorithms to come up with the best results for the searched query within a fraction of a second. Without the presence of data science, these search engines wouldn’t have been the same we know today.
Online shopping
Every wondered how e-commerce sites like Amazon come up with suggestions about similar products? They not only bring you relevant products from all the products available with them but significantly enhance the user experience as well. Those notifications popping up every time you browse through an e-commerce platform become possible because of the role of data science playing in the backend. These online shopping platforms dive into massive pools of customer data to comprehend and learn shopping patterns, preferences, and tastes and based on those, they develop customized shopping recommendations for the consumers.
Healthcare
The healthcare industry is transforming rapidly, thanks to the implementation of data science technologies. Data backed by innovative technologies is continually helping the industry in offering better service. Days, when loads of paperwork were required to organize and maintain patient health records, are matters of the past now. Electronic Medical Records or EMRs powered by data science technologies enable healthcare providers to capture patient data within a centralized platform which can be accessed by medical professionals anytime, from anywhere. This leads to more professional supervision and treatment. In addition, wearables and fitness sensors have enabled millions of individuals to take care of their health. Now, everyone can monitor his/her health without having to visit the clinic every time. Even the seniors can monitor their health easily with the help of remote monitoring technology, the success of which is dependent on the role of data science. Any anomaly and fluctuation in their health are conveyed to healthcare providers in the form of messages or alerts, thus empowering medical practitioners to prescribe treatments in real-time.
Airline planning
It’s a well-known fact that the airline industry throughout the world is experiencing heavy losses. Most of the service providers are struggling to maintain their operating profits and occupancy ratio. The need to offer hefty discounts to attract customers together with increasing air fuel prices has made the situation even more difficult. But recently few of these providers have started leveraging data science to gain some profit. In this industry, the role of data science has become huge when it comes to effective planning. With the help of data science, providers now can decide the class of airplanes to buy, decide whether to reach the destination directly or halt in between, predict flight delay, design customer loyalty programs effectively etc. Airline service providers capture and crunch data to obtain valuable insights that help them make better decisions to become profitable.
Finance sector
The role of data science can be clearly observed in the finance sector. There was a time when banks used to experience a huge amount of bad debt and losses each year. However, they had a massive amount of data that was captured during the initial paperwork. With the help of data science technologies, banking companies are now able to divide and conquer data through past expenditures, customer profiling together with other variables for analyzing the probabilities of default and risk. They’re also leveraging the role of data science to prevent financial fraud. Now, banks can successfully track and trace credit card fraud, the breach of important financial data, and any other suspicious activity by leveraging data science tools and technologies. This has helped greatly in strengthening the security of banks and offering optimum protection to valuable customer information.
Logistics
Logistics is another industry where the role of data science is clearly visible. Delivery companies like FedEx, DHL, UPS etc use data science tools and technologies to improve their logistic, which results in better operational efficiency. Today, we can expect our deliveries to be right on time, exactly where and when we ordered it to be – all these are becoming possible by processing massive amounts of data and deriving valuable insights out of that to come up with best solutions.
Speech recognition
These days, speech recognition products like Siri, Google Voice, Cortana etc are becoming increasingly popular. Even if you aren’t in a position to compose a message, you can manage with the help of speech recognition feature. All you need to do is speak out the message only and it’ll be converted to text.
Face recognition
During the initial phase of face recognition algorithms, they used to consider different types of things as a human face. Now it’s fairly impossible, thanks to the role of data science playing behind. These days, algorithms are able to learn by consuming massive amounts of data about what’s a face and what isn’t, what’s a crack on something, and what’s a smile, just to name a few. This process is quite similar to the way human brains work. To an average user, face recognition may not be a big deal but to law enforcement agencies, it can act as a powerful tool.
Digital advertisements
One of the biggest incidents of leveraging the role of data science can be observed in the digital marketing spectrum. From the digital billboards placed at the airports to the display banners on different websites – almost every time data science algorithms are helping businesses to attract customers. You can target digital advertisements based on your users’ past behavior, which is probably the biggest reason why digital ads usually get a lot higher CTR (Click-Through Rate) compared to traditional advertisements.
Gaming
All the major game developers like EA Sports, Nintendo, Sony, Zynga etc use data science to take the gaming experience to another level. Now games are designed with the help of machine learning algorithms that are capable of upgrading themselves as a player moves up to another level.
Weather patterns
There’re satellites and weather sensors are deployed all across the globe. A massive amount of data is captured from them, and then that data is utilized to monitor the environmental and weather conditions. Different agencies use data science technologies in different ways including weather forecasting, in comprehending the patterns of natural disasters, to study global warming and many more.
Improved safety
The role of data science is being leveraged for reducing traffic accidents, law enforcement, and much more. This helps organizations develop the proper contingency plans to maintain the safety of their stakeholders. Many law enforcement agencies use data science tools and technologies to stop crime. They capture data which enables them to analyze and predict crimes. This information helps agencies to disperse officers where they’re most needed.
Final Takeaway
As you can see from the above real-life examples, the role of data science is evident in almost every aspect of life. Data science comes with boundless potential. Almost everything on earth that generates data comes within the boundaries of this field. The above ones are just some of the many scenarios where data science is playing crucial roles. Data sources, as well as, amounts are growing only and so is our ability to turn them into knowledge. These days, data science is surely creating a wave of positive change around us and will become even more widespread and integrated into everyday life in the coming future.
