Decolonizing data's role in explaining the social world means rejecting the assumption that only data can explain data—that is, that only quantitative methods based on Big Data methodologies can accurately describe the world from now on. While it should not reject the idea of gathering data as such (for example, for clearly defined social purposes), the evolving project to think together about the consequences of data colonialism must insist on close attention to those "aspects of social life that remain unseen, unheard, uncounted or unacknowledged within prevailing understandings of capitalism," as Johnna Montgomerie argues. Put differently, our understanding of the social world needs to be rescued from a narrow understanding that equates it with large data sets and abstract models with "only fantastical links to actual human experience or observation."

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 639