Data fatigue--go figure: we're all growing immune to large round numbers.

A study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance estimates that the annual losses from global software piracy are in the neighborhood of $29 billion. This is quite a staggering figure, but it seems almost paltry when compared with the $60 billion in lost productivity stemming from chronic physical pain suffered by employees, as was recently reported by the Journal of the American Medical Association. This, too, is an electrifyingly unnerving number, but it pales by comparison with the $80 billion that chronic gamblers are supposedly costing the American government each year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Given the astounding size of these losses, you would think that there would be more hue and cry both inside the business community and among the general public. Puzzlingly, there is not. This is partially the result of a phenomenon called cognitive statistical dissonance, which makes all large numbers seem too enormous to be dealt with, and renders the brain incapable of processing the relevant information and acting accordingly. Experts also refer to another phenomenon called data fatigue, which describes a psychological condition in which human beings find themselves assaulted on so many sides by so many humongous numbers that they feel themselves trapped in the statistical woods and seek only to escape. This is related to yet another phenomenon called the Pinocchio Syndrome, pertaining to a situation in which the public no longer trusts the facts and figures that are being thrust at them and decides that unethical, misguided, hopelessly compromised or merely puckish statisticians are simply making them all up. This is particularly true if the numbers are generated by a one-person "think tank" in Washington, or by anyone running for public office.

Yet another statistical curiosity that needs to be considered here is the Bambi Covalent. Not long ago, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported that collisions with deer were responsible for more than $1 billion in vehicular damage in the state of New York alone. This is a troubling figure, but as it is not nearly as unnerving as the $80 billion that chronic gamblers are allegedly costing the U.S. government each year, there is a natural tendency to ignore the smaller figure, as the larger one is, well, larger. For similar reasons, when people read in the Journal that spam is costing the American economy $10 billion in lost productivity each year, they tend to ignore it, thinking, "Well, that's chicken feed compared to what herniated disks and carpal tunnel syndrome are setting us back."

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I am certainly not suggesting that the figures cited above are unreliable, or need to be taken with a grain of salt, or are supplied by industries that have their own reason to frighten the public or the business community into action, or even that they are mere fluff. What I am suggesting is that terrifyingly large numbers, perhaps through simple overuse, may have gradually lost their ability to scare people. This is why I am now proposing a revolutionary statistical innovation.

My suggestion, plain and simple, is that organizations seeking to scare the public into action immediately stop using rounded numbers. Eighty billion is a very precise figure, but at some level it does not quite seem real. When people read that chronic gambling is costing the government $80 billion a year, there is a part of them that says, "I think they pulled that number out of thin air." But if you told the public that chronic gamblers were costing the government $79,987,768,342.32 a year, they might take it to heart. Rounded numbers seem arbitrary and fake; numbers like $79,987,768,342.32 seem oddly authentic. They sound like someone actually pulled out a calculator and tabulated them.

My second suggestion is far more radical. It is simply this: Stop using numbers entirely. The public does not trust the numbers; the public does not fear the numbers; the public may not even like the numbers. Instead, the nation's watch keepers, sentinels and full-time alarmists should start saying things like: "Researchers report that sleep deprivation is now costing the American economy a ton of money." Or, "Illegal downloads of music are now costing the music industry a pretty penny." Or, "Spam is resulting in more annual lost productivity than you can shake a stick at it." Finally, "If we don't do something about our imperiled social security system, retirees could lose the whole kit and caboodle."

"The whole kit and caboodle" beats "$500 trillion" any day of the week.