Digitization is the conversion of various forms of information into binary code. Since in doing so, the information is converted into something that can be processed by a computer, it is also known as computerization. In the modern era, the digitization of data has led to immense benefits and has contributed greatly to the advancement of society at an alarming rate. This is because the great processing power of computers allows data that has been digitized to be processed much faster than humans can. Hence, digitization has naturally been followed by automation, leading to much higher efficiencies most of the time.
An example of this can be email or email. Some may argue that digitization in the literal definition of the word does not occur because the document is not converted into a digital representation. However, it should be noted that email has replaced the traditional type of mail, also sometimes known as snail mail. As such, aren’t letters that would otherwise have been handwritten digitally represented? So in a sense, the rise of email can be called the digitization of postal mail. Now let’s look at some of the benefits of email. Many can be observed, but in the end they all have an end result, that emails are much faster than traditional mail. Instead of important news or warnings being sent long distances over several days, they can now be sent almost instantly. The invention of satellite phones means that email can reach places that are inaccessible or difficult to access for the postal service.
The wonders of digitization can not only be seen in email, but can easily be seen with the advent of digital cameras. Older cameras had to have photographic film inserted in them in order to take pictures. This film then had to be developed to obtain photographs. With the exception of Polaroid cameras, this process took some time and the images were not instantly viewable. The digital camera got rid of this by digitizing the image projected by the camera lens and saving it as an image file. This can be seen instantly on the camera’s LCD screen. It also allows images to be heavily edited. Since most modern digital cameras come with a large internal storage memory, it significantly increases the number of photos that can be taken. On film cameras, it was limited to 30 images per roll. It goes without saying that digital cameras also eliminate the added cost and inconvenience of purchasing photographic film.
Perhaps the most useful form of digitization is document digitization. Files such as land records, voter lists, information on citizens, etc. everything can be digitized and stored on hard drives. Aside from the obvious advantage of consuming less space, they also become easier to manage. Computer-developed software allows large amounts of information to be organized according to the user’s wishes and to be searched and navigated much more easily. It also makes it easy to back up when stored as a document, for example information can be stored on a virtual drive so that if the original copy is damaged it can be recovered from your archive. Digitization is truly one of the most useful recently developed technologies.