When the count is wrong

A woman in Damietta makes beaded bracelets and sells them, mostly to women who have seen one on a friend's wrist. Orders arrive by phone, through sisters, neighbours and a cousin who teaches at a girls' school.

She also posts a photograph of each new design. Most collect a handful of likes. One she was especially proud of, deep green with a silver clasp, collected almost none, so she concluded that people did not like it and stopped making it.

Three weeks later, two women asked her for the green one.

The likes were never measuring her bracelets. They were measuring how many of her followers happened to open the app that evening, and what the app chose to put in front of them. The real demand was walking around Damietta on women's wrists, and almost none of it showed up on the screen.

When a simple instrument fails, we see it at once. If the kitchen scale says a full bag of flour weighs nothing, nobody believes the flour has vanished. But the more machinery there is between us and the truth, the more willing we are to trust the reading. A number on a screen looks precise. It updates. It has a graph. Surely it knows something.

Often it knows very little, and because it moves a little every day, it is right just often enough to keep our faith.

When the number and what you can see in front of you disagree, it is worth checking the number before doubting the world.