Conclusions

The goal for which this book was conceived was that of providing the reader with the tools to navigate the rough seas of digital data. It opens with a conceptual definition of data and its connection with cognitive processes (Chapter 1), then explores the spatial, temporal and relational coordinates within which data are located and transformed ( Chapter 2 ). The discussion then turns to the methodological approaches that make it possible to control the key aspects of reliability, validity and representativeness in digital data ( Chapter 3 ), before looking ahead to future prospects in the age of artificial intelligence, the proliferation of synthetic data and the most pressing ethical challenges ( Chapter 4 ).