Which of the following is an example of big data?

• A. Data on how long millions of website users spend on pages depending on layouts and color schemes
• B. Data on all marriage licenses from 1970 to the present
• C. Data from a small community survey with 50 participants
• D. Data from a single hospital patient

Answer: (A)

Big data refers to extremely large volumes of data that come from many sources, are generated at high speed, and include a wide variety of types and features. The example with data on how long millions of website users spend on pages, depending on layouts and color schemes, fits this well. It involves a massive number of users (huge volume), captures behavior across many page designs and user interactions (variety), and is produced continuously as people browse, often in real time (velocity). This combination makes it the kind of dataset that typically requires specialized analytics to uncover patterns, trends, and insights.

The other scenarios don’t match as clearly. A long-running set of marriage licenses is substantial, but it’s a single, structured administrative dataset from one source and not generated by millions of users with many concurrent interactions. A small survey of 50 participants is clearly small data, and data from a single hospital patient is even more limited in scale and scope.