HUMAN FACE OF BIG DATA
Some App Results
In less than two months, more than 3 million share and compare questions have been answered, in more than 100 countries, through “The Human Face of Big Data” smartphone survey app.
By collating and analyzing these 3 million+ responses we gained some insightful conclusions related to the attitudes and approaches to life from men and women, young and old, all over the world. Here are just a few of the most interesting findings…
In asking the question “What is most important for good health – diet, exercise, environment or genes?” we discovered that Americans are more likely to believe that good health is in their hands, choosing diet and exercise, while Europeans seem to believe their health is predetermined or out of their control, predominantly selecting either genes or environment
In response to the question “What do you do to help cope with stress most?” we learned that as we get older work and prayer tend to replace friends or the arts as our primary means of stress relief, indicating that older generations prefer to bury themselves in work or deal with stress on their own, rather than by seeking entertainment or distraction
When asked “If I could alter the DNA of my unborn child I would improve their: lifespan, intelligence, immunity or appearance” the findings showed that Americans are most concerned about their children’s education and job prospects, while Europeans worry most about their children’s health, perhaps reflecting the current unemployment rates and standards of available healthcare in these two nations.
While these findings give only a brief snapshot of the world around us, the goal of this app was to encourage people to embrace the subject of big data and to consider its potential to help us shape and change our daily lives. Hundreds of striking examples of ways this is already happening are illustrated in the photographs, infographics and essays within the Human Face of Big Data book.
The anonymous data complied from the app will be made available for educators, data scientists, researchers and the general public to access as a valuable research tool, in order to conduct further in-depth sifting and sorting of the results, that may one day be considered an invaluable snapshot of human history.
Posted by david ricketts 
