1.1 Reading

Data dimension: accessing urban data and making it accessible

Nabian, Offenhuber, Vanky, and Ratti

“Before delving into this subject, it would be useful to define what
the authors mean by ‘participation’. Participation can be
voluntary, where members of an urban population contribute
to the data generation/acquisition process consciously with some
level of involvement and dedication to the project. At the same
time, participation can be involuntary – citizens in the heavily
networked cities of today involuntarily leave digital traces from
their day-to-day activities as they benefit from various services
offered to them on different networks (cellular networks,
banking networks, etc.).” (p.73)

Sometimes by measuring something, the thing that is being measured is altered in some way through the act of measuring. Similarly, if people are aware that they’re actions are being monitored or observed, they may decide to adjust their behavior accordingly. Jeremy Bentham utilized this phenomenon with his idea for the Panopticon, a concept which was employed in prison design. Based on this understanding of human behavior, we can infer that data which is created voluntarily knowing that it will be publicly accessible will be different than that which is gleaned involuntarily, such as digital traces which are left unknowingly. There is a risk that this can create a distorted view of reality if one is relying to heavily upon the former type of data to inform our understanding of reality. An example of this phenomenon is the way that excessive social media use can have a negative effect on people’s mental health because the data that people voluntarily post on social media platforms usually focuses on positive events like parties and vacations makes it seem like everyone else is having way more fun than you. How can we combat the ways in which the biases in these types of data distort are perceptions of reality?