So, okay, I myself have no remote interest in this "gangnam style" thing that's been making the rounds. But I just noticed a column blurb on Huffington Post about how much time everyone "wastes" on the Internet titled something like "We have watched 2100 years of 'Gangnam Style'" That's supposed to sound like a lot. And, well, 2100 years is a lot of time. Except this isn't linear time, of course, it's time that's been folded and crunched wibbly-wobbly style into a couple of actual weeks. They're person-hours, in other words, X people watching for Y hours. And doing a bit of math we find that, on average, each of the 7 billion humans on earth has watched approximately 9.5 seconds of this video, if the 2100 years figure is correct.
In other words: there are a lot of people on this planet. A billion is a very big number. If you collected one cent from everyone on the planet you'd be filthy rich. And, likewise, if everyone on earth did something for an average of ten seconds you'd get over two person-millennia. The mantra from my A.P. Chemistry class becomes relevant here: you can't know the significance of a number if you don't know its units. Person-hours are very different from actual hours.
Also, of course, one can object to the use of the word "wasting" here; if people enjoy watching Gangnam Style, then good on them. But, as I didn't read the article, I don't really feel like I should delve very far into that point.
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