We're at more than 10.5 million global confirmed cases of #COVID19 and 2.5 million in the US and growing quickly, so why don't the numbers and behaviors align? A thread from your friendly historian of quantification

NB - before you read this thread please note that the people who have the ability to stay home, not eat in a restaurant, etc are the issue NOT the workers who have no choice but to show up & do their jobs so they can survive. Now onto why the numbers don't seem to change behavior

Numbers are rhetorical, they do not simply argue for or make meaning by themselves. It matters how the figures are presented and interpreted. We're seeing the impact of this in American politics around public health measures, but it's true elsewhere as well

Understanding of numbers in the US is LOW - according to a 2014 study only 9% of US adults performed at a high proficiency level on numeracy evaluations. US numeracy is at the bottom of an international analysis https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014008.pdf

Numbers are situated - the contexts in which people make sense of the numbers depends on their knowledge systems. For some, not yet knowing anyone with/impacted by COVID19 is a bigger factor, for others the numbers are the whole truth

Numbers are situated #2 - we've been dealing with varying scales of analysis, most of which map poorly onto people's lives. Global and national numbers are valuable, but gains in NYC resulted in behavioral changes in AZ to terrible effect

Numbers are affective - yes, that's what I said, numbers make people feel things and for some people that is resistance while for others its despair. When those feelings are intense, people's need to function can kick in resulting in desensitization

Numbers are affective part 2 - counting is a powerful way of asserting knowledge and control over something as unruly as a pandemic - for some, simply the ability to measure (however ineffectually) means that things are under control

Numbers are embodied - when people say that it's really hard to wrap their head around a number like 100,000 dead or 10.5 million sick, we should listen. It is hard to have an embodied understanding of numbers like that, which makes embodied action harder

Numbers are embodied #2 - exponential growth, like in pandemic disease is really hard to understand. Studies have documented that most HS students don't have a good working understanding of exponentiality. It's hard to change behavior around something you don't understand

Behavioral change is not the same as numeracy, but people's understanding (or lack there)of numbers is a big factor - it makes the figures MORE rhetorical and subject to larger messaging efforts.

There's more to say and I'll be working on it, but you can also read more about the history of quantification of death and life in Numbered Lives: Life and Death in Quantum Media https://covid-19.mitpress.mit.edu/numbered-lives  (online) https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/numbered-lives (in print) /fin