2019 Sep, More than five million
5.555.555 + 3.333.333 + 8.888 + 555
Sometimes numbers sing. And in this case, the numbers seem to sing a polyphonic Bach composition, so complex and extensive, yet so simple and clear.
How can the 5,555,555, five million five hundred and fifty-five thousand five hundred and fifty-five visits to my website not sing to me?
How can the 3,333,333, three million three hundred and thirty thousand, three hundred and thirty-three visits to my Flickr account not sing to me?
How can the 8,888, seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven followers on my Instagram account not sing to me, only five months since I signed up for it?
How can they not sing to me, those 555, five hundred and fifty-five references in the UPM Digital Archive, which is the largest number of references in that medium of any professor of that public university, the UPM?
5.555.555 + 3.333.333 + 8.888 + 555
They’re such outrageous numbers that today I’m incapable of digesting them. They are enormous, excessive, and I don’t think I deserve them.
We must recognize that the digital world is not the future; it is the present and the very present. Children already been born in it know this very well, and they move around in it like fish in water.
Recently, during a large party attended by many friends, the YouTube video we were all watching on a giant screen broke down. The IT guy who was in charge tried again and again to fix it but to no avail. That was until a few children, the grandchildren of the guest of honor, arrived on the scene and fixed it all in the blink of an eye. And the party continued.
I still know very little, almost nothing really, about computers. I constantly struggle with mine, and I invariably have to turn for help to my colleagues, who are much younger than me, and who know everything about this digital world.
But I have to acknowledge, to celebrate, how truly extraordinary these new digital media are.
