I'm A Data Scientist. You're A Data Scientist. Everyone Is A Data Scientist.

Except, we don’t really use any of the data we collect.

- Zachary Chan

Analytics and big data, two very popular catchphrases you’ll hear in any modern office. Data is collected through various IoT, hardware or software means, and scrutinized to improve business processes, efficiency or create new strategies.

Big data has also become a huge component in our personal lives, but I think the phenomenon is getting out of control. We’ve become way too engrossed with tracking everything; feeling good about numbers regardless of whether they are actually meaningful. Rarely do we even interpret the data, let alone use it to make improvements in our lives.

Take fitness trackers and smartwatches. 10,000 steps a day have become somewhat of a baseline for everyday fitness most people strive for, and I do think that it is a good step forward. Any form of activity is better than nothing, right? However, 10,000 steps is quite a meaningless number without taking into account how these steps were achieved in the first place, the quality of the steps in regards to actual exercise, every individual’s level of fitness, and the inaccuracies of off-the-shelf fitness trackers. Most of the time, you’d be clocking steps just by swinging your arms around.

At the end of the day, what exactly do you derive out of that step count other than you’ve reached it (or not)?