This is a post about digit thinking. Not digital – that is, I’m not talking (specifically) about technology, but about counting and what it does to who and how we are.

So, I’ve made my debut into academic life. As a full-time doctoral researcher, I get my own desk on Level 7. Sitting there is a bit like stepping back into 2004, but it’s not a hot desk – it’s mine! I’m starting to learn about the education research factions which dwell on each of the floors. Yesterday a young woman from Level 5 came up to use the printer (theirs is “dead”, I was told) and I introduced myself eagerly, being a bit desperately lonely on a Friday in an empty office. We discovered we had a brilliant mentor in common, as well as a growing interest in sustainability action and a Chinese zodiac sign. And then she returned to the deep.

This is a post about digit thinking. Not digital – that is, I’m not talking (specifically) about technology, but about counting and what it does to who and how we are.

As I’ve mentioned previously, “digital” is an adjective meaning “of the digits”, and the OG digits were the fingers as used for counting. The typical pair of human hands has ten digits, which of course is why we use a base-ten counting system, and almost certainly why we think of things in discrete quantities (integers). And this is why, now, when we talk about technology we are almost invariably talking about digital technology: technologies programmed using digit-based code (mostly binary) which affords a robust foundation on which to build staggeringly complex yet powerfully functional architectures which we call software applications.

(Because I adore English words, linguistics and etymology, a sidebar about that word integer. If you thought “integrity”, you were right. Integrity literally means a state of being whole and undivided – morally, this means acting in accordance with your principles, not being “two-faced”, etcetera. But it’s actually mathematical, indicating the absence of plurality. Integrity is the state of being an integer: one whole thing and nothing else.)

I suspect this structural understanding is a foundational one to digital literacy. We are all too rarely aware that digital technologies enforce digit thinking. We can of course code multiple commands into an application, but each command sits cleanly apart from each other, and must be executed in sequence. So Netflix can classify me as a British comedy viewer, and it can classify me as a horror movie viewer, but it has no ability to make sense of the messy space in between. One could claim it tries, and certainly Netflix can create a British horror comedy movie category if it has enough titles to shelve there – but of course that would just be another integer, wouldn’t it?

Yes – it’s possible to add more and more and more lines of code to create a feeling of high-resolution nuance, but never, never forget how that data is structured and what it by definition precludes.

So why start this post with an aside about a chat by the office printer? Because it’s little moments like that which trouble our digit thinking. The floors in my office are siloed (of course). Level 7 academics (Social Transformations in Education) are implicitly different from Level 5 academics (Teacher Education), and this difference means they are separated by both ideology and vertical space. I could claim two desks – one on each floor – but I would still have to be at one or the other at any given moment, participating in belonging-on-Level-5 or belonging-on-Level-7 as the geography dictated.

This thinking is as old as humanity itself – it patently isn’t a result of digital technology. It’s just derived from a common source. And we must not lose sight of its implications – particularly for how it means we relate to one another.