I have to admit, I do kind of love numbers. I blame it on my seedy science-loving past. That, in combination with the USA Today-esque "infographic" world we live in, makes it difficult to resist the visual junk food I'm often fed.
But I wonder, do we have a Future Shock aka "paradox of choice" with stats and analytics too? Case in point – the data visualization on Linkedin's groups. On the surface, interesting and noteworthy feature, but on the other hand, does this information do anything for me, a mere member of the group? It seems like it's just standard web analytics, but instead of being presented to the group owner, it's being served up to the masses. I presume that this is to help users make a choice about what groups to join or to cull? Unfortunately, seeing the titles of group members; where they're from; and the group's activity level just ends up making me feeling like I'm making bad choices and honestly a bit depressed.