Neil’s Data Log (2/24)

Chatting with people

I have a very sick (not in the cool way) morning ritual. Every day literally starts with me snoozing the alarm and then checking my notifications for any messages which popped up during the night (people who come from places halfway across the earth will empathise with me)!

I use quite a few applications to chat with people. People back in India prefer using WhatsApp. Friends and classmates here in the US prefer Slack and Facebook messenger. Instagram messaging is mostly for sharing memes and funny videos (but it counts, right? Because the memes people share can say a lot about them :P). Emails (outlook and gmail) and LinkedIn is reserved for professional conversations. Also, does piazza count?

Moving around

The weather was amazing today and I decided to bike to school instead of taking the bus. I used Bluebikes twice today and it collects information about the start station, end station, start time, end time, etc.

I used my credit card a couple of times today, to buy a coffee and later a candy bar in a vending machine. So my credit card company probably knows exactly how much calories I gained in that delicious smoked butterscotch latte!

I also used the WiFi at MIT and later in the cafe. And my data is always on! I guess all of these people could track my location while I was connected to their network.

Getting Online

I listen to a lot of music. I was shocked when Spotify released the amount of music I had heard in 2019. It was around 60k minutes! Spotify is probably my most used application and it collects a lot of information on me!

I use Instagram and like every 20 something person I’m sorta addicted to it. I use Facebook too, but not as much as I used to use it 5 years ago. I spent a lot of time today on Stack Overflow searching for some python and R things that were hindering me from completing a few homework.

I also use Amazon Fresh, but today wasn’t groceries day! But I did use Amazon to search for a shiba inu plush and a giant Hershey bar!

Other breadcrumbs

I don’t use much Twitter, but today was a special day. Trump is visiting India and he made some hilarious pronunciations (or rather mispronunciations) of some Indian names during his rally. Indian Twitter is lit up with memes and videos and I spent a good half an hour laughing!