by Pol Villaverde / thoughts / 01-11-2019
Nowadays many believe that we are dehumanizing society, whether it is through technology, politics or economic administration and part of this criticizm is sustained upon the perception that everything is counted with data. A good example of this are the statistics about natural disasters, terrorist attacks or refugees whose boats sink in the Mediterranean. Used to count the victims of these phenomena by tens or even hundreds, we are immune to the real damage caused and the stories behind.
It is precisely for these reason that the image of the body of Aylan in a beach became famous worldwide, because it broke radically with the dehumanization of the refugee crisis. This is the problem of the masses, we lose perspective and gain passion when we are part of them but we are terrified by their power when we look at them from the outside. Maybe if we managed to somehow connect with that passion that unites us in a soccer pitch but to do so with all human beings we would develop a fantastic empathy to resolve problems. But let’s stick to the topic, data.
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A curious example
Numbers are expected to be objective and, indeed, they are. However, this doesn’t happen with the perspective with which we look at them. Not a long ago a piece of news claimed that a town in Catalonia had become the second richest town of Spain. So, theoretically, the average citizen of that small village was way more rich than any other point of the country. What was, then, the cause of such a sudden change in the income of the town citizens?
In fact, there was no significant increase in the earnings of the citizens. What was the true reason for the record-breaking income per capita? One person, Apparently, someone with a lot of money had decided to settle in a hose in that town and caused the unprecedented growth in the overall wealth. This is a silly yet clarifying example illustrating the previously explained idea because, as said, the average citizen income had multiplied but the town wasn’t any wealthier. Besides this curious case, the core idea of the anecdote is closely related to what we were explaining before.
To what extent is a merely quantitative analysis of things useful when it comes to determining the state of a question? No one denies the fact that an analphabetism index below 5% is and will always be better than that of an 8%, but is this really enough to state whether if a society is doing good? A reduction in the youth unemployment rate is positive but it’s not necessarily indicative of a better quality of life, it is only indicative of a greater dedication to work. What if all those work hours are at expenses of study time? What if they denote a bubble-like situation such as the one lived in the construction sector, which would leave these young men and women without future perspectives once it has exploded?
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Quantity or quality?
There are studies which try to measure the happiness index of citizens of each State by means of examining parameters such as the ones we mentioned or similar ones like the health quality and, again, income per capita. Usually the Nordic countries, ahead in terms of health systems, welfare state or educational innovation are also ahead of such rankings. That said, it is especially relevant pointing out that, simultaneously, some of these countries are also in the first positions when it comes to suicide data. It seems that we still need to perfect the systems to track happiness. Or maybe there might be certain things impossible to quantify.
Whatever the answer to that doubt is, by no means it is all about forgetting of numbers as a way of taking better decisions in a wide variety of areas, ranging all the way from politics to businesses. However, it is possible that further reflection and a rather qualitative approach is often needed.
Last month, at ‘splashapps’ we achieved 50.000 installs of our 7 apps. We’ve celebrated it but this only makes sense as long as our apps have brought something positive to the tens of thousands that have installed them. Only if our apps have enabled laughter, entertained, amused, generated friendships, helped someone to get in shape or lighten their paths, only in that case, everything will have been worth it.
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