We are living in this crazy world where unfortunately everything’s digital, right? Well it turns out, like, 90% of all the data floating around out there was just born in the past couple of years. Yeah, you heard that right – two years! It’s like we’re all suddenly drowning in a tsunami of data, and nobody handed out life jackets.

So, you know how you’re scrolling through Instagram, liking pics of puppies and drooling over food porn? Well, congrats, my friend, you’re adding to that ginormous pile of data. And it’s not just us regular folks.

Our gadgets are in on the action too. Your Fitbit, your smart fridge, even your toaster (seriously, who needs a smart toaster?) – they’re all spitting out data faster than you can say “Hey Siri, what’s up?”

But hey, let’s give a shout-out to the businesses too. They’re like data-hoarders, but in a good way… I think? They’re gobbling up every byte of info they can get their hands on, all in the name of understanding us better and selling us more stuff. It’s like they’ve got a crystal ball, except it’s made of algorithms and customer data instead of glass.

But here’s the thing: with great data comes great responsibility. There are privacy issues, security risks, and all sorts of ethical dilemmas lurking in the digital shadows.

As an example, Australia has experienced several healthcare hacks in recent years – one of which being in October 2022 when Aleksandr Gennadievich Ermakov, an IT worker, stole around 9.7 million records from the Medibank Private network. The stolen records included names, dates of birth, Medicare numbers, and sensitive medical information.

We’ve gotta figure out how to swim through this sea of data without getting sucked under by a rip current of scams and hacks.

So yeah, here we are, riding this crazy wave of information overload. It’s like a wild roller coaster ride, with twists and turns and maybe a few stomach-churning moments along the way. But hey, at least we’ve got each other, right? And hey, if all else fails, there’s always cat videos to keep us sane.