What Counts

On The Numbers We Track and The Ones We Never Think To

Pic credit- www.unsplash.com

My phone knows how many steps I took yesterday. It knows my screen time to the minute and sends me a weekly report, as if I had asked for one. It knows how many hours I slept and how many of them were “deep.” What it doesn’t know is when I last called my bodo mama (maternal uncle) or my best friend Pratibha or my cousin I kept meaning to ring. When I finally sat down to work it out, it turned out I didn’t know either. Months, probably. Longer than I’d have guessed. I could tell you my resting heart rate. I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d heard my bodo mama or Pratibha laugh.

I recently wrote about the things that aren’t meant to be measured: the walk with no step count, the swim with no stroke rate, the dinner tasted as it cooked. Writing it, I noticed something less comfortable. The trouble was never only that I was counting or tracking. It’s what I choose to count or not count. I measured what is easy to measure. Steps, calories, followers, hours billed. These come with sensors and apps and little rings that close. The things that would actually change how we live come with nothing at all. No device buzzes when a friendship has gone quiet. No app sends a weekly report on how often we said yes when we meant no. For years I tracked steps, heart rate number faithfully for years, and…