Hey guys. Sorry, I’ve been away for a little bit. Even though I write about life, life itself got in the way of my writing. Talk about irony.. 🤷♂️
Anyway, recently, I realized something, and thought, would share the same with you. As Covid-19 still continues to ravage many parts of the world, a lot of us who have made it thus far, have had to rely on something to do that: the ever-growing, omnipresent, even omniscient, some would say, digital world.
Whether it is ordering essentials like food, groceries, medicines, and other supplies online, or booking vaccination slots, or making payments, or connecting with our loved ones, or even working, we have had to fast-track our movement to the digital at break-neck speeds.
That is not to say that these things were not happening online earlier. They sure were. But Covid has really pushed that in our face, and what was earlier just a convenience became a necessity.
It also highlighted one thing: in general, those who were already adept at the digital world, or were able to adapt quickly enough, were able to better withstand these tumultuous times.
But I think this story doesn’t just end with Covid. I think going forward, even beyond Covid, the digital world is what we, as the human species, need to adapt for. Earlier, the evolution of our species has been shaped by natural and environmental factors. But I think the next major leaps in our evolution will be driven by the digital ones. It’s the next frontier for evolution.
You might ask, what does that even mean? Well, adapting to a digital world doesn’t mean that everyone starts developing programs and writing code day and night or other things like that. No one needs to become Neo!
For me, adapting for the digital includes things like:
- Safeguarding your online presence. And by presence, I mean your email or financial accounts, your social media handles, your data, your online reputation even. An attack on your online presence means an attack on you, and this could have real-world effects. And this is not even something in the future. This is happening right now!
- Using the power of social media. Again, we very recently saw an example of this. Social media, for all its ills, helped save many precious lives by allowing people to quickly and effectively arrange for oxygen cylinders, medicines, ventilators, and hospital beds for their loved ones. We have social media influencers that can significantly affect businesses with a single tweet or an action, as recent events with Elon Musk and Bitcoin, and Ronaldo and Coca-Cola show.
- Using the vast knowledge store. On the internet, you can find anything and everything, as long as you know where and how to look. We need to use this to improve ourselves, whether it is by learning new skills, identifying new avenues of making and investing money, understanding social and economic issues, etc.
- Knowing how to identify fact from fiction. “Fake news” is the buzzword these days. Deep fakes are doing the rounds, which many of us still can not believe are actually fake. However, there’s more to it than that. Having so much information on the net also has its downside – there is a lot of incorrect information out there as well. How do you know what information to trust? Whom to trust? Media? Governments? Your community? Your friends? Have none of them ever been wrong?
- Understanding how the digital systems work. What are your rights in case all your financial or social data is stolen? What steps do you need to take immediately to protect yourself from further harm? What can you do if some website is forcing you to provide your email address before you can view the webpage? What can you do to access content that your government is trying to hide from you? This is where some basic to intermediate coding and hacking skills would actually be quite useful!
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In the future, people who will be better able to address these challenges and opportunities will have a better chance of survival. Earlier we built local communities to better survive the environment and predators. In the future, we’ll need to learn to leverage our social networks. Earlier, our conflicts used to be over food and land resources. In the future, they will be over technology access and intellectual property. Earlier our culture and traditions were influenced by natural phenomena like eclipses, seasonal floods, etc. and we built gods around them. Will these all-knowing, all-powerful tech giants be the gods of tomorrow?
I don’t know exactly what the future will bring, or what it will look like. With virtual reality, quantum computing, robotics, data analytics, human-computer interaction (HCI), and a host of other ancillary technologies, the possibilities are endless. But one thing I do feel is that we need to be better prepared than we are right now, to deal with this emerging world order.
And we need to adapt quickly. Our survival will depend on that. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen, and it might happen sooner than we may imagine.
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Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash
Echoes In The Ether 