The Subatomic Person: A New Ontology of Big Data

Big data impacts us at an ontological level, developing a new idea of personhood —the subatomic individual. This subatomic individual is created by the hegemony of big data and is distinct from the older, atomic form of individualism.. This subatomic individual is made up of individual pieces of information about our empirical selves that are then collected in massive databases and used to influence society. This has a depoliticizing impact, as big data strips the context from the subatomic person, leaving them in a perpetual present with neither a connection to the past nor hope of a transformative future.