The terms "data" and "information" are often confused by most people. The obvious similarity between these terms is they're both sources of something that is readable. Without further ado, let us differentiate these two terms through and through.
Data is a continuous series or stream of bit patterns encoded and read by the computer. While, information is the main source of content particularly readable by humans. Information is decoded from data; thus, it can be displayed by any digital means, such as a viewer usually in a form of software.
Data is transferred or transmitted back and forth or unidirectionally by any particular digital means. For instance, pressing a few keys in a keyboard, the keys pressed send a bunch of signals to the computer to process the input from the user. The signals sent by the keyboard are not just transmissible signals, they contain data of what keys are pressed. The information in this instance is the characters displayed in a text area, where it is capable of editing the text and has the blinking cursor to indicate the focus to the area and its location within the text. By text area, examples of it are Notepad, the address bar on any browser, search bar, etc. The keyboard example is considered unidirectional, the keyboard only transmits signals to any device that are capable of receiving signals from it.
Information is not just text, it can be an image, video, audio, or any other readable media. A file containing text is already simple for a text viewer or editor to decode. Playable or renderable media—such as image, video, and audio—hold more data than ordinary text files that only contain usual characters. Generally, common file types are used to ensure cross-compatibility of viewing those across various devices. These include .mp3, .mp4, .jpg, .png, etc. Likewise, these types of files can be opened by the device's respective built-in media player or viewer, or can be opened by widespread and popular viewers. Sometimes, other file types requires a particular codec installed in a computer to view a file in its different type.
Data is sometimes confused with information, as people denote it a collection of values—which is an implication often heard in statistics. In computing context, it is merely an encoded version of information. A computer only knows 0 and 1, which implies that a computer only reads binary or machine code that is non-readable for us humans, we only read information to know what is in it.
So there you have it, I have demystified the discrepancy between data and information. Thanks for reading this web page, just to know the differences between the two, and I hope you find this helpful for your technological foundation.