Too Huge, hard to imagine

Do I believe all these figures? Do I believe "210 billion emails a day"?

Maybe I should do a little back-of-envelope calculation: 6 billion people on earth, that makes 35 emails every day from every single person on earth, on the average. 35 emails from every newborn baby, every ninety-year old nursing home patient, every Innuit in Greenland, every bushman in Africa. every Chinese, everyone in the slum cities of India...

OK, you say, but most of it comes from spammers, who send out huge amounts of spam mail every day, and this accounts for the huge figure. But wait: Someone will receive these mails! Since the bushmen, Innuits, Chinese and Indian slum people get very little of it, those of us who do receive email will receive far more. Maybe three times as much, maybe six times as much as the average for the earth as a whole. But is it so? Does every Westerner receives 100-200 emails a day? You, your spouse and three children: Taken all together, do you receive 500-1000 emails every single day?

Maybe not. Maybe we should be somewhat sceptical to "unbelievable" figures. If it sounds too high to be true, maybe it is.

j b,
agree