A Number on a Spreadsheet: When Everything Becomes Data

October 20, 2025

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now, and honestly? It's making me feel like a proper misanthrope. Everything—and I mean everything—has been reduced to statistics. Numbers on spreadsheets. Data points in databases. Metrics to be optimised.

It's not just dehumanising. It's exhausting as hell.

The Quantification of Everything

We live in an age where every aspect of human existence gets translated into numbers. Your worth to an employer? A productivity metric. Your social life? Follower counts and engagement rates. Your health? Step counts, sleep scores, heart rate variability. Your education? Grade point averages and percentile rankings.

Even your personality—your fundamental nature as a human being—gets reduced to categories and types. Which brings me to something that's been particularly bothering me lately: chronotypes.

The Wolf Chronotype (Or: Why 9-5 Is Designed to Kill Me)

I'm a Wolf chronotype. The irony isn't lost on me—someone genuinely obsessed with werewolves discovering they're biologically programmed to be most alert when the moon's out. But here's the thing: being a Wolf chronotype means my circadian rhythm peaks in the evening. I'm most productive between about 19:00 and midnight, and my brain doesn't properly wake up until mid-afternoon at the earliest.

Society, however, has decided that everyone should be a Lion. Morning people. Early risers. The "I'm at my desk by 07:00 with a coffee and a smile" crowd. And if you're not? Well, you're lazy. Unmotivated. Lacking discipline.

Never mind that chronotypes are biologically determined. Never mind that forcing someone with an evening chronotype into a morning schedule is like asking them to function whilst perpetually jet-lagged. The system doesn't care about your biology. It cares about the numbers.

College: Where Biology Goes to Die

This hits particularly hard in education. I'm at college, surrounded by a system that fundamentally doesn't acknowledge that human beings have different optimal functioning times. Lessons start at 09:00. If you're late, you're penalised. If you're struggling to focus because your brain is still in sleep mode, that's your problem.

The statistics that matter to the institution? Attendance rates. Pass rates. Retention metrics. Whether you're actually learning, whether you're engaged, whether the schedule aligns with your biological reality—these don't show up on the dashboard, so they don't matter.

I've sat through morning lessons where I'm genuinely fighting to keep my eyes open, knowing full well that in eight hours I'll be sharp, focused, and ready to learn. But by then, the day's over. The opportunity's gone. Another data point logged: "present but disengaged."

The Tyranny of Metrics

Here's what really gets me: once everything becomes a number, the humanity gets stripped away entirely. You're not a person with complex needs, preferences, and biological rhythms. You're a set of statistics to be optimised.

Employers don't see "talented individual who does their best work between 18:00 and 02:00." They see "poor attendance at morning meetings" and "below-average productivity during core hours." The fact that you could be twice as productive with a different schedule is irrelevant, because the metrics aren't designed to capture that reality.

Universities don't see "passionate student who needs a flexible schedule to accommodate their chronotype." They see "declining grades in morning modules" and "irregular attendance patterns." Again, your actual capabilities and potential contributions don't fit into the spreadsheet columns.

The Illusion of Objectivity

The worst part? We've convinced ourselves that this obsession with metrics is somehow more objective, more fair. "The numbers don't lie," people say, as if reducing complex human experiences to data points magically eliminates bias or discrimination.

But the numbers do lie. Or rather, they tell a particular story whilst ignoring countless others. When you measure employee productivity by hours logged in the office, you're not measuring actual output—you're measuring presence. When you rank students by their performance in timed exams, you're not measuring understanding—you're measuring how well they perform under artificial pressure in an arbitrary timeframe.

And when you design an entire society around the assumption that everyone's most productive between 09:00 and 17:00, you're not accommodating human diversity—you're enforcing conformity to a biological norm that only suits about 15% of the population.

The Personal Toll

Living in this system when you don't fit the statistical norm takes a genuine toll. There's a constant background hum of failure, even when you're doing your best work. You're not just fighting against your tasks; you're fighting against the fundamental structure that assumes you should be able to perform at times when your biology is screaming at you to sleep.

I've lost count of the times I've heard "just go to bed earlier" or "you need more discipline." As if chronotypes are a fucking choice. As if I haven't tried every sleep schedule, every alarm system, every productivity hack designed for morning people. The problem isn't lack of effort—it's that the system refuses to acknowledge that different people have different optimal functioning times.

And because everything's measured, tracked, and logged, there's a permanent record of your "underperformance" in morning activities. Never mind that you're consistently excellent in evening tasks. Those metrics don't get weighted equally because they don't fit the standard model.

The Misanthropy Problem

Here's where I start feeling like a proper misanthrope: the more I think about this systemic reduction of humanity to numbers, the angrier I get at the people perpetuating it. Not just the faceless institutions, but the individuals who look at these metrics and think they're seeing truth.

The hiring managers who filter out candidates with "irregular work histories" without considering whether those gaps represent caregiving, chronic illness, or just trying to find a schedule that doesn't destroy their health. The educators who mark students down for attendance without investigating why someone might struggle with morning classes. The colleagues who judge "productivity" by desk time rather than actual output.

It's not that these people are malicious. They're not twirling their moustaches whilst cackling about how they're going to dehumanise everyone. They genuinely believe they're being objective, fair, data-driven. Which somehow makes it worse, because you can't argue with someone who's convinced that "the numbers speak for themselves."

But numbers don't speak. People interpret them, and those interpretations are loaded with assumptions about what's normal, what's acceptable, what's valuable. And when your lived experience doesn't fit the statistical model, you become an outlier to be corrected rather than a person to be accommodated.

The Digital Amplification

Technology has made this exponentially worse. Not because technology is inherently bad—I love tech, obviously—but because it's made the tracking and quantification of everything trivially easy.

Thirty years ago, if an employer wanted to monitor your productivity, they'd have to actively spy on you. Now there's software that tracks your mouse movements, logs your keystrokes, times your bathroom breaks. The quantification is automatic, continuous, and increasingly granular.

Education platforms track not just whether you completed an assignment, but how long you spent on each question, how many times you revised your answer, what time of day you accessed the material. Again, this could theoretically be used to support students—"oh, you're consistently engaging with material late at night, perhaps we should offer evening support sessions"—but in practice it's used to enforce conformity: "your engagement times are outside standard hours, this indicates lack of commitment."

Social media reduced human connection to metrics: likes, shares, followers, engagement rates. Your worth as a person becomes tied to algorithmic favour rather than genuine relationships. And we've internalised this so thoroughly that people genuinely experience distress when their posts don't perform well, as if the numbers somehow reflect their value as human beings.

The Chronotype Catch-22

Let me circle back to chronotypes specifically, because they're a perfect example of how this statistical thinking creates impossible situations.

There are four main chronotypes: Lions (morning people), Bears (following solar rhythm), Wolves (evening people), and Dolphins (irregular sleep patterns). Roughly 15-20% of people are Lions, 50% are Bears, 15-20% are Wolves, and 10% are Dolphins.

Society is designed for Lions. Maybe Bears can manage if they push themselves. Wolves and Dolphins? We're fucked.

But here's the catch-22: to succeed in this system, you need to perform well in morning hours. To perform well in morning hours when you're a Wolf, you need to force yourself into an unnatural sleep schedule. Forcing yourself into an unnatural sleep schedule degrades your overall performance. So you end up doing worse than you would if the system just... acknowledged that not everyone peaks at 09:00.

And because the metrics only measure performance during "standard hours," there's no official recognition of this problem. You're just another data point showing "suboptimal morning productivity." The fact that you could be brilliant given appropriate scheduling doesn't appear in the statistics.

The Health Implications

This isn't just about productivity—it's actively harmful to health. Chronic sleep deprivation (which is what you get when you force a Wolf to live on a Lion's schedule) is linked to increased risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and numerous other conditions.

But again, these health impacts don't show up in the productivity metrics until they're catastrophic. The gradual degradation of your wellbeing is invisible to the spreadsheets until you burn out entirely. At which point you become a different kind of statistic: "employee turnover" or "student dropout."

The system is literally making people ill to maintain schedules that only actually suit a minority of the population. And we accept this because we've bought into the idea that 09:00–17:00 is somehow natural, scientific, objectively correct—when it's just arbitrary convention that happens to favour one chronotype over all others.

The Bigger Picture: Late-Stage Capitalism and Datafication

Look, I'm going to get slightly political here (as if this entire post hasn't been political), but I genuinely think this obsession with reducing everything to metrics is fundamentally tied to late-stage capitalism.

When the primary goal is maximising shareholder value, everything gets viewed through the lens of efficiency and optimisation. People aren't individuals with unique needs—they're resources to be allocated, units of labour to be measured against productivity targets.

The datafication of everything makes this worse because it creates the illusion that we can optimise humanity itself. Track enough metrics, analyse enough data, and surely we can squeeze out another few percentage points of efficiency, right?

Except humans aren't machines. We're messy, complex, biological entities with circadian rhythms, emotional needs, social requirements, and fundamental dignity. Treating us as optimisation problems doesn't just fail on ethical grounds—it fails practically, because the system burns people out trying to fit them into statistical norms.

The Surveillance Economy

There's also something deeply unsettling about how much data is being collected about our behaviours, preferences, and patterns. Every click tracked, every purchase logged, every movement monitored.

Tech companies claim this is about "improving user experience" or "providing personalised services." But really, it's about converting human behaviour into commodified data. You're not a customer—you're a product being sold to advertisers. Your value is measured in clickthrough rates and conversion percentages.

And crucially, this surveillance is asymmetric. Companies know everything about you; you know almost nothing about how your data is being used, what conclusions are being drawn, what decisions are being made based on statistical models you've never seen.

You become a number in someone else's spreadsheet, with no meaningful recourse when those numbers misrepresent your reality.

What This Does to Human Connection

Perhaps what bothers me most is how this statistical thinking erodes genuine human connection. When every interaction can be quantified—response times, message lengths, engagement metrics—we start relating to each other through numbers rather than authentic engagement.

Dating apps are the perfect example. You're literally a set of statistics: age, height, location, interests quantified into categories. Swipe algorithms determine who you see based on engagement patterns. Success is measured in matches and message response rates.

Where's the space for genuine connection? For recognising that someone might be interesting even if they don't fit your usual "type"? For allowing relationships to develop organically rather than being optimised through data-driven matchmaking?

And this extends to friendships, professional relationships, even family connections. Social media encourages us to curate our lives for maximum engagement rather than authentic sharing. Work platforms measure collaboration in terms of message frequency and response times rather than actual cooperation quality. Everything becomes performative because we know it's being measured.

The Resistance Question

So what do we do about this? Because honestly, I'm still figuring that out myself.

Part of me wants to rage against the entire system—refuse to participate in the quantification, reject the metrics, insist on being seen as a whole person rather than a data point. But that's not realistic when your education, employment, and social connections all depend on engaging with these systems.

The other part recognises that complete rejection isn't feasible or even desirable. Some metrics are genuinely useful. Tracking your sleep patterns can help identify health issues. Monitoring your productivity can reveal when you're burning out. Data about chronotypes helps us understand biological diversity.

The problem isn't measurement itself—it's the reduction of human complexity to only what can be measured, and the assumption that those measurements tell us everything we need to know.

Individual Strategies

On an individual level, I'm trying to be more intentional about which metrics I engage with and why. Not checking engagement numbers on social media unless I have a specific reason. Not letting my step count dictate whether I've had a "successful" day. Recognising when I'm performing for the metrics rather than actually doing what's meaningful to me.

For the chronotype issue specifically, I'm advocating for myself more. Explaining to educators that my best work happens in the evening, providing evidence of my actual capabilities when I'm working during my optimal hours. It doesn't always work—institutional systems are rigid by design—but sometimes individual teachers will accommodate when they understand the biological basis.

And crucially, trying to remember that the numbers don't define me. When I get a poor grade on a morning exam, it's not because I'm stupid or lazy—it's because I was forced to perform at a time when my brain simply isn't at its best. The metric is flawed, not me.

Collective Action

But individual strategies only get you so far. What we really need is collective recognition that this way of organising society is fundamentally broken.

We need educational systems that accommodate different chronotypes—offering core content at various times so students can choose schedules that work for their biology. We need workplaces that measure actual output rather than face time, that recognise different people have different optimal working hours. We need social structures that value human wellbeing over optimised efficiency.

This isn't impossible. Some companies have experimented with flexible working hours and found that productivity increases when people work during their optimal times. Some universities offer asynchronous learning options that let students engage with material when they're most alert. The evidence is there—what's lacking is the willingness to challenge the assumption that everyone should conform to the same schedule.

The Loneliness of Being an Outlier

Here's something I don't often talk about: being an outlier in these systems is profoundly lonely.

You're constantly aware that you don't fit the norm. That your natural rhythms are "wrong" according to the statistical models. That you're being judged by metrics designed for a different type of person.

And because everyone else seems to manage (or at least pretends to), you start wondering if maybe you are just lazy, undisciplined, making excuses. Even though you know intellectually that chronotypes are biological, that you can't just "try harder" to change when your brain is naturally alert.

The gaslighting is constant and comes from everywhere: alarm clock apps that shame you for hitting snooze, productivity gurus who insist everyone should wake at 05:00, well-meaning friends who suggest you're just not committed enough. Even healthcare professionals sometimes dismiss chronotype concerns as poor sleep hygiene rather than biological reality.

It's isolating to have your lived experience be completely misrepresented by the metrics, and then be told that the metrics are what matter. That your subjective understanding of your own capabilities is less valid than the numbers in the system.

The Second-Guessing

This creates a constant loop of self-doubt. Did I actually try my best, or am I just making excuses? Is my chronotype a real constraint, or am I being lazy? Am I genuinely working optimally in the evenings, or am I just procrastinating and calling it biology?

The metrics don't answer these questions—they just tell you you're underperforming according to standards that weren't designed for you in the first place. And because we're all trained to trust numbers over our own experiences, you end up questioning your reality rather than questioning the measurements.

Why This Makes Me a Misanthrope

Coming back to the original point: this is why I'm starting to feel like a proper misanthrope.

It's not that I hate humanity in general. It's that I'm frustrated with how we've collectively decided to organise society in ways that actively harm significant portions of the population for the sake of statistical convenience.

We have the knowledge to do better. We understand chronotypes, we recognise that people have different needs and optimal functioning times, we can see the health impacts of forced conformity to arbitrary schedules. But we don't change the systems because changing systems is hard, and it's easier to just tell outliers to try harder.

And the people enforcing these systems—they're not monsters. They're just... humans, following the incentive structures they've been given, trusting the metrics they've been told matter. Which is almost worse, because there's no villain to fight against. Just widespread, systemic acceptance of a deeply flawed way of organising human activity.

The Hope Problem

The misanthropy gets worse when I catch myself hoping that systems will change, only to be disappointed again and again.

Maybe this new management will understand flexible working. (They don't.)

Maybe these educators will accommodate different chronotypes. (They won't.)

Maybe this platform will prioritise genuine connection over engagement metrics. (It absolutely will not.)

After enough cycles of hope and disappointment, it's hard not to become cynical about humanity's capacity to prioritise wellbeing over efficiency, individuals over statistics, lived experience over measurable data.

A Closing Thought (Or: Still Looking for the Light)

So where does this leave me? Honestly, I'm not sure.

Part of me wants to rage against the machine, to refuse to be reduced to numbers, to insist loudly that I'm a whole person with complex needs that don't fit neatly into spreadsheet cells. Another part recognises that rage is exhausting, and I'm already tired from fighting my chronotype every morning.

What I do know is that this isn't sustainable—not for me, not for the other Wolves and Dolphins struggling through morning-centric systems, not for any of us trying to maintain our humanity in an increasingly quantified world.

We need better metrics. Ones that capture what actually matters: wellbeing, genuine capability, authentic engagement, human dignity. Not just what's easy to measure.

And critically, we need to remember that the map is not the territory. The numbers are representations of reality, not reality itself. When the metrics conflict with lived experience, maybe—just maybe—we should question the metrics rather than dismissing the experience.

But until systems change, I'll keep being a Wolf trying to function in a Lion's world. Performing at my best when everyone else has gone home, knowing that nobody's tracking the brilliant work I do at 23:00 because it falls outside "standard hours."