When historians look back at the early twentieth-first century, they will see it as the point at which humanity’s ability to maintain civilisation over an ever-expanding population was questioned for the first time since the Dark Ages.
The impact of global warming had already shown that our lifestyles were unsustainable. Then, in late 2019 and early 2020, international travel meant that the COVID-19 pandemic, for which warning bells had already been sounded in the shape of SARS, spread widely before many knew what was happening. Among the impacts of these crises is a generational shift in the ways in which we communicate.
The crises we face are indirectly related. Harvard’s Dr. Aaron Bernstein has argued that as the planet warms, life forms are moving close to the poles to get away from the heat. So they come into contact with new organisms, creating new chances for pathogens to find a host. On the plus side, if we can limit global warming, then we also reduce the dangers of unpredictable future pandemics.
A fortunate aspect of the timing of COVID-19 is that it follows a period of extraordinary technological progress. Even five years ago, the economic impact of lockdowns would have been much greater. Governments and the private sector now have a greater array of digital tools. A factor that could work in our favour is the spin-off benefit from the pandemic of greater awareness of the environment, hygiene and the invisible results of our actions.
Due to the pandemic, travel for most of us has been greatly curtailed or ended. COVID-19 has forced work tasks to be performed remotely by digital means. This is likely to end the culture of office presenteeism for ever. Travel junkets with a thin business purpose are a thing of the past. We can now see clearly which aspects of workplace culture were driven by current necessity and which are cultural legacies. We will need to find smarter, faster and environmentally cleaner ways of communicating.
Every generation reinvents the ways of communicating that it inherits. The process this time will be more radical. Time, of course, is against us: according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C means we have a remaining carbon budget of less than 10 years of emissions at their current level.
Digital generations
Communication is one aspect of our lives that will change for ever. The health and sustainability crises facing the planet are redefining not only the tools we use to communicate, but the role of communication itself.
Generational change always alters how we communicate. The mobile phones of the 1980s were radical at the time, but now look like pieces of industrial machinery. In our time, the changes that are being made exceed the simple boundaries of technological progress. In 2020, even our legal identities are becoming digitalised. This means that top-down communication models designed in the twentieth century are no longer optimal or even workable. Vertical communication, where information and ideas flow freely up and down between hierarchical levels, is now a necessity.
Digitalisation also raises the spectre of a divide between the digital haves, who are able to communicate, and the have nots, who can’t. Even in the US, according to Pew Research, a quarter of the population does not have broadband Internet service at home, and almost a fifth does not own a smartphone.
Previous technological revolutions in history changed firstly the nature of human labour. The current revolution is more profound and wide-reaching. Among our greatest post-pandemic challenges will be to extend digital access beyond narrow sections of the world population. Whether we are the masters or the slaves of new technology such as smartphones depends largely on our attitudes. We can either regard these innovations are burdens that we have to bear, or opportunities to shape new ways of communicating. Those who succeed best at digital communication will be those who can master the art of making our digital selves more human.
