I take a pretty small view of my health data, and Nick Wingfield even uses the term small data to when he writes at the Bits Blog at the New York Times of the information collected by the Fitbit I use and other devices. It seems strange to think enthusiastically about big data when the revelations about the NSA and PRISM are headline fare, but Wingfield convincingly show how data collected from many individual users could be put to beneficial predictive use
An individual’s biometric statistics — call them small data — could get a lot more intriguing and useful for everyone if they were pooled into giant vats of data from thousands or even millions of people. Researchers are starting to use body sensors, including the ubiquitous smartphone, to glean a deeper understanding of how behavior, environment and other factors are related to disease.
Coincidentally, Ginger.io, one of the apps that appears in Ryan Panchadsaram's video features here, too.