Gary Brown: Playing social media's mind-numbing numbers games
The photo for the meme posted on social media showed a young woman appearing seemingly surprised. Could this fact she had just seen be true?
"The moment you realize 2023 is ending with '123123' (12/31/23)," the caption said.
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A friend from the college I attended re-posted that meme when he found it on Facebook. It had gotten more than 550,000 "likes." Such is the ease with which we are entertained and sort of educated on social media.
I'm a word guy, and it even got me thinking about the intriguing little coincidences concerning the numbers 1, 2 and 3. Of course, I'm also the kind of guy who will waste precious minutes of his life – time that I never will get back in order to use it to waste watching silly cat and dog videos on Facebook – in order to "find the three" in a square containing columns of 8s. I'm either way too competitive or pridefully vain, because the challenge I saw concerning the similar digits stated that "only a genius will find it."
I was delighted to discover that I must be either a top level genius because I found three of the 3s. Or, I am as stupid as the dickens for methodically going up and down the rows searching for them.
Anyway, it's interesting to learn this fascinating numerical fact about the "123123" nature of the last day of this year.
Too bad I'll forget about it long before the date arrives, and probably won't get to enjoy the day.
Other numbers games
There is much number-related figuring going on in social media postings these days. One that I recently saw indicated that, interestingly enough, the multiplying of increasing higher numbers made up of only "1" produces sums in consecutive numbers that increase, then decrease.
"1 x 1 = 1," the mathematics facts meme noted. I'm no math whiz, but I knew that one. I also was not surprised that "11 x 11 = 121" or that 111 x 111 = 12321." Do the math.
I got a little more astounded when I saw that "1111 x 1111 = 1234321" and "11111 x 11111 = 123454321." And I believe I said "hmmm" when I learned that "111111 x 111111 = 12345654321." I was shaking my head and wondering why I never noticed that by the time I learned that "111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321"
The math meme went on through "11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321" and finally to "11111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321."
I got out my calculator and determined that it all checks out. Which is why I wasted even more time on the meme and never did do any posting of my own that morning. Sorry if anybody didn't have a happy birthday that day because I didn't get around to wishing them one on Facebook.
So, it's true what my high school math teacher insisted to me during a well-intentioned motivational talk just after report cards came out. Math really is more interesting than just showing up in class and just working hard enough to eke out a "C."
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A final numbers moment
I did eventually have a math moment of my own.
It's going to be pretty obvious that I keep cars for awhile and drive them to high mileage. I apparently get comfortable in a car and want to keep it instead of trading it in. Either that or I'm just forcing myself to save up the change that drops from my pockets and stays on the floor under the seats.
Anyway, for quite some time I had been noticing that the mileage on my SUV was inching up toward a milestone--111,111 miles. So I waited. And I watched.
I wanted to post the arrangement of numbers on my Facebook page. It was going to be a picture of a digital display of "111111" -- the number of miles on the odometer of my car that I was waiting to see arrive, so I could take a picture of it for Facebook friends to view.
But, I got thinking of something else as I was driving at one point, and it slipped my mind to watch for "111111." So, the photograph of my dashboard that I ended up with was "111116." Missed it by five miles.
Looks like I'm going to have to drive the car until the odometer reaches "222222" in order for my social media life to be truly fulfilled.
Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Gary Brown: Playing social media's mind-numbing numbers games
