Tech can save us from the pandemic. The pandemic can save us from tech.
Take a guess at how long it has been since the first iPhone was released.
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What was your answer? And can you remember what that first iPhone could do?
First-generation iPhones were released less than 13 years ago, in June 2007. Maybe not that surprising. The features it had might surprise you though. Compared to current versions, the first iPhone looks as basic as paper cups attached by string: there were no picture messages, no maps functionality, you needed a computer to set it up, and there was no choice of wallpaper — just a black background. The screen was just 3.5 inches and there were no third-party apps. It was mostly a phone with an iPod built-in and a great touchscreen.
Many people thought it would be a colossal failure, but the iPhone transformed the mobile technology world.
The information age on rocket fuel.
The iPhone wasn’t alone though. Powered by the Web 2.0 movement, there was an explosion of consumer technology platforms that changed the way we live our daily lives. Consider this timeline of launches:
Facebook — February 2004
YouTube — February 2005
Twitter — July 2006
iPhone 1 — June 2007
WhatsApp — May 2009
Instagram — October 2010
In the space of six-and-a-half years, we moved from BlackBerry email and desktop internet, to being able to watch video of a monkey falling out of a tree and sharing the link with your pals on WhatsApp while walking across a busy road. It’s like the caveman discovered fire on Monday and had a flamethrower by Friday.
Injecting high-octane tech.
Tech has come a long way, very rapidly. In the same period, humans have barely changed at all. As a species, we are high-functioning although our brains are still evolving and some parts are ill-adapted to the modern world (like our fight-or-flight response). We now carry powerful devices around with us all day that allow us to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time, with an infinite supply of information at our fingertips. This is an astonishing and magical thing. It’s also an awful and dangerous thing.
Some of the effects of this much information and connectivity are becoming known, and certainly much talked about — one communications expert described digital technology as “much like a mutating virus, [that] keeps churning out new threats along with the new benefits”. There’s no shortage of studies and commentaries on the potential dangers of tech and social media that I won’t rehash — we can, instead, just look around at any given moment to see the ubiquity of modern mobile technology. Phones and laptops everywhere, faces illuminated by screen glow, no spare, unstimulated second tolerable without being interrupted by a device. Photographer, Eric Pickersgill, put together a brilliant exhibition in which he captured images of people using devices which he then removed with Photoshop, leaving the subjects gazing into their palm, usually whilst in the company of others. The effect is striking.
We were never given a user manual for mobile technology or social media. There’s no recommended dosage or regulatory limit. It just arrived, a shiny glass and metal version of crack cocaine, available through a subscription. It’s like giving your kids the keys to a sweet shop and then being a bit stunned that their teeth are rotting.
I sometimes imagine what we would look like as a species to an alien who has just landed on earth — a collection of biological matter arranged in a strange format that has our eyes fixed on a small glass oblong held out in front of us. The alien would probably conclude that we must be receiving our instructions from this artificial device, but would be confused to see we’re just mindlessly scrolling through TOWIE holiday pics and adverts for yoga pants.
The dark horse here is the laptop. Once the preserve of executives and senior management, their lower cost means the majority of knowledge workers now have one. Suddenly our office is always with us wherever we go. How to balance work and life, when your laptop is blinking in your eyeline while you have dinner with your family?
Thank god for technology.
And yet, technology is coming into its own right now. For many knowledge economy workers, there is (in the short-term at least) the ability to work remotely and seamlessly, placing huge reliance and emphasis on the need to communicate, connect and socialise using technology. Without laptops and phones, we’d be screwed.
Sadly, we’re already also seeing businesses and sectors that rely on human contact, like retail and hospitality, suffer enormously, with independents particularly hard hit. It’s a stark picture. Some are using technology in creative ways (my local yoga studio is offering live classes through Zoom) whilst others are simply using it to connect with their customers and ask for their support.
My LinkedIn feed is full of advice on tips for working from home, some useful, some quite obvious and some just thinly disguised marketing. For many people, this is a new or unusual experience, whilst others have been working remotely for years. Whatever category you’re in, the next few weeks look like a mass cultural shift in terms of the way we work and interact with each other.
This isn’t just about having access to your emails, instant messaging and key files, it’s also about a fundamentally different way of being every day. Less human contact, less social contact, less time outdoors, less variety and spontaneity in your life. This is more important than you might think — Google, for instance, specifically design their office environments to encourage unplanned “collisions” between people, which research shows leads to a culture that promotes ideas and innovation.
Remote technology can help to overcome this, allowing us to connect, to share humour (I find situations like this are when the human capacity to find the lighter side of life really comes into its own), and to get creative — I’m having beers with pals on Saturday at our virtual pub courtesy of Zoom. It also allows us to receive and seek out information in an uncertain time — although that, of course, is a double-edged sword that depends on where you’re sourcing your information.
Absence, hearts, fonder.
So are we going to become even more absorbed by our devices, unable to communicate unless we’re gazing into a screen or tapping a keyboard like some horrific episode Black Mirror? What will happen when the isolation ends?
My view here is not that we reach a realisation that tech is good or that it is bad — it’s that we learn how to use it in the right context, and gain a much greater appreciation for the fact that we’re passing our minuscule time on this planet with other people. Cal Newport, who coined the term ‘digital minimalism’, has studied and written extensively about the dangers of modern technology — and yet he does not demonise it. Instead, he talks of intentionality — using tech consciously and with awareness, reaching for our phones for a specific purpose rather than the reflex of an addict who can’t stand to be with their own mind whilst waiting for a lift.
I think — actually, I hope — that we’ll come out of our cocoons with a new appreciation for sitting in front of someone and speaking, face-to-face, observing all those tiny things that can’t be captured by a screen. Maybe we’ll even have a greater respect for physical contact, something increasingly stigmatised yet an essential way for us to connect, express and empathise. That touch on the arm, the hugs and handshakes, the comforting pat.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, gave a speech on 11 March outlining measures that required people to stay confined to their homes. He signed off by quoting sociologist Norbert Elias: “Let’s keep our distance today so that we can embrace each other better tomorrow”.
