The Presentation of Data Graphics In Everyday Life

"Consider how our smartphones, social media platforms, or even search engines alter the pace, pattern, and scale of our daily activities. Think about your own process for selecting restaurants, documenting moments, and sharing your thoughts with others and the role that your media plays in these activities. Next, consider pictorial representations of data, or data graphics as a medium. How have data graphics proliferated their presence in our everyday life? Navigation systems guide us from one location to another through narrated directions accompanied by digital maps, annotated with points of interests like the nearest coffee shops, shoe stores, or art museums as alternative pathways to peak our interest and reroute us from our original destination. Aside from navigation aids, data graphics accompany news reports, research findings, and advertisements as both supporting evidence and alternative narratives. [...] [...] When used with integrity and purpose, data graphics have the potential to help us, as humans, make sense of this intensely data focused world. Yet, the current state of data graphics is that they are often overused and underwhelming."