Anyone who has ever seen a movie or TV show knows that classic scene where a character asks the question "Do you feel like you're being watched?" to another character. Now, many Americans in today's society ask the exact same question about their lives. In the 21st century, modern technology has meant that governments, businesses, scientists and researchers can do just that: observe our lives with clusters of so-called “Big Data”. Big data is commonly seen as the digital storage of large amounts of information (Researcher CQ, 909). Big data can be about anything from a person's Facebook content to their email address; any personal information about someone can be considered big data (909). The question, then, is how the data is used and what are the advantages and disadvantages of the access that entities have to this big data. Big data is the digital storage of large amounts of information and comes in many different forms. This can be a person's information from social media, their phone calls and records, emails, bank statements and any other personal information they may have, including credit card (912) numbers. This information is most often found within emails, social media and search engines (912). Additionally, government organizations such as the National Security Administration (NSA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) collect much of this big data; in one case, the DEA requested telephone records from AT&T (912) customers. Computers designated for big data can look beyond structure to examine less structured data such as Facebook information, camera images, search engine searches, and what customers look at in online retail stores like Amazon.com ( 912). Most of the big data stored is… middle of paper… in a way that helps identify transactions that may be illegal; Using this data led to nearly 300 investigations by July 2013 (915). There is no doubt that big data is an extremely controversial topic in today's society. Companies, scientists, and even the government use big data every day, from finding new ways to strengthen the economy to improving medicine to tracking terrorists. Added to this, however, is the belief that people are losing their privacy and loss of trust in government, as well as other downsides such as worse credit scores and whether or not someone will get a job or loan. Like many things in life, big data has both advantages and disadvantages. The question remains, then: is big data more beneficial than harmful? Works Cited “Big Data and Privacy.” CQ Researcher 23.38 (2013): 909-932. Network. February 2014.