Stats Poem by NAYYAR SHABBIR AHMAD

Stats are just that. Very unreliable.
Especially if they're on the internet
Anyone can read whatever they wish into them

Someone said to me - the other day: Check the stats on your poetry page. They look terrific.!

I wasn't excited. I had checked them roughly two years ago, and out of perhaps a billion computers in use around the hemisphere was attracting an average of two people a day...Very disheartening - to say the least!

Anyway, I looked up my stats out of curiosity. My site was receiving 79 strikes a day. Great - despite the fact that by now at least a trillion computers were operating around the globe.

One can check to see the length of time spent on a site. According to what I saw people had lingered on my site for hours.

Naturally, I was delighted. But when I thought about it, visitors could have left my page and wandered off to read a newspaper on a new window' - or started up a new search engine in order to skype a friend - send an urgent text, e-mail, or have a lengthy video conference.

On the other hand, upon getting on to my site, the usual distractions could have taken over. The sound of letters falling to the floor, a newspaper being shoved into the letterbox; the doorbell ringing; a milkman. demanding to be paid. Any amount of things.

I conclude that computer stats are terribly deceptive...and, no one can prove any different.