1 July 2023 by Mondo2.0

The age of “databases”

Internet evolves rapidly, in many, disparate, controversial directions.
The social network phase, in which we all began to experiment with new spaces of aggregation and social confusion, the Google phase, in which we learned to search for anything and settle for the first answer, the multimedia phase that legitimized the term “selfie”, … But today, what phase of the Internet are we in?

We are in the “database” phase: the services we use have turned into real databases, immense containers, multimedia repositories in which everything is available and anything can be searched for.

The “databases” are the consequence of an evolutionary process that has led us, in the real world, to get lost in megastores, increasingly large shops with thousands of alternatives for every budget, to stare for many hours at our smartphones, increasingly “smart” in terms of performance, video screen, followers and friends, and to buy online in virtual megastores, an infinitely broader evolution of the department stores mentioned above.

We have learned to search among thousands, tens of thousands of alternatives, to compare every possible purchase or daily need with what the large databases on the Internet offer.

The “databases” are the product of the ability to read, filter and quickly scroll through online content, a trait that characterizes many cyberusers. Such speed is not always followed by careful reading and conscious selection. It matters little; what matters is having many alternatives and being fast.

Netflix, RAI Play, Disney, YouTube, Spotify, … are nothing more than gigantic, immense databases that allow us to browse content, that offer, offer and offer.

Computer databases enriched with brightly colored covers available to millions of users; where the digital database itself becomes a showcase.

Their very display method demonstrates the breadth of the offering: the database is exhibited, available, evident, clickable.

The opportunities are all there, on your screen, immediately selectable.
The evolution in the cyberuser’s visual reading methods makes it possible to move beyond the typographic model, in which the screen resembles and behaves like a sheet of paper. The user can search for the film, series, song or book without getting up from the sofa at home, or while out and about, while walking or running. Paradoxically, they can shop online while shopping in the real world.

Within large databases one can scroll and race in every direction, move quickly from what is seen on the screen toward other alternatives, downward, upward, from right to left, or through voice search.

Amazon, perhaps the largest of the databases (after Google), offers thousands of results for every search, with refinement filters close to every need. Prices are extremely competitive; goods often arrive at our homes within 24 or 48 hours.

Large publishers offer printed books or e-books of every kind.

Apartments for sale can be viewed through databases, and so can summer rentals.
Music can be enjoyed via streaming, again through immense databases.

Purchasing and consumption are almost always immediate, the offering is potentially unlimited, and it keeps increasing. Millions of results.

Cultural institutions are also beginning to offer, on a massive scale, their cultural databases: books, works of art, photographs, drawings, cultural routes, people, …

The new Internet user, the user who has been browsing online for over a decade, has serious problems expressing their self and their thoughts online, gets drawn into inappropriate debates and overwhelmed by fake news but, at the same time, has become a skilled user of databases, capable of selecting, comparing and purchasing. They choose within enormous computer databases.

This new ability to search, navigate and select is creating a digital divide between those who know how to navigate within these databases and those who do not.

Traditional generalist television and radio, media that follow a precise schedule, are seeing the average age of their users rise significantly. These are the people who do not know how to choose digitally within databases.

Everyone else, especially the young and very young, is “inside” the databases, able and needing to explore, choose and create personal playlists.

They have learned to compare, select and choose in a few moments. This ability to choose will have effects on their awareness, self-esteem, time devoted to the real world, purchases made, waiting times, …

Tomorrow’s public, able to choose, intervene and judge, will be profoundly different from yesterday’s public.

But since the Internet, as stated at the beginning, is a space in continuous evolution, databases are nothing more than the launch pad for the next step.

Artificial intelligence applied to databases, combined with the tracking and monitoring of our behavior, will lead databases to suggest films, books and articles according to our needs, something that is already partly happening. The more these software systems evolve, the more data they will have available, the big data, the more these suggestions will be appreciated, useful and then indispensable.

Databases will turn into personal and effective suggestions, suggestions made by software that uses databases.

Then narratives will arrive, storytelling always generated by A.I. capable of involving us emotionally, stories, playlists created ad hoc for us. Suggestions from databases will turn into stories, into friendly and reliable interactions.

Our society, increasingly automatic, is undergoing full digital transformation, as shown by the fact that databases are among the protagonists of our time.

And to think that some people are amazed by the impact chatBots will have on our lives while, in the meantime, they do not notice that now is the “age of databases”.

Mondoduepuntozero