The difference between information and data
With the spread of technology, computers, and smartphones in our current era, the production of data and the exchange of information has become an integral part of our activities and work, through its massive and huge circulation throughout the day or hours, but many people, whether interested in this matter or others, have thought about it, and the other party has not thought about it. He still thought of this question; Is “data” the same as information? Or is there a difference between data and information? What does each of them consist of?
Data
It is a set of facts or raw data that may be symbols, numbers, shapes, or letters without a complete meaning and are not of any benefit to the user. It is considered raw material to enter into a process called “processing,” which results in information.
Data consists of two types: (qualitative data and quantitative data)
- Qualitative data: It is non-numeric data, which is not measured by numbers, but rather by classification and type, and is relied upon to arrange things to reach reliable and accurate results and statistics.
- Quantitative data: This is data that can be measured with numbers and quantities. This data is divided into integers and continuous numbers, through collecting and classifying data.
the information
It is data that has undergone processing in some way and has become meaningful and useful to the user, meaning that this data, after processing and extracting it, resulted in important or useful information for us.
The difference between data and information
- From the definition, it becomes clear to us that data are facts, but they are unorganized and unprocessed, while information is characterized as processed, organized, and has real benefit and meaning.
- Data is a single unit, raw material, and has no meaning, while information can represent a logical community in a useful and usable way.
- Data does not depend on information, while information depends heavily on data, and without the presence of data, we would not have formed information!
- Data is measured in bits and bytes, while information can be measured in units of time, temperature, speed, weather factors, etc.
- Through information, decisions can be made, but data is not sufficient to make decisions based on it!
