Could we walk away from the internet or give up our devices?

I’ve thought about putting this thought into the ether before, but I’m all too aware of confirmation bias and the fact that what I’m about to say might be the future I want rather than the future that is unfolding. I’m also far too aware of the words of the writer Douglas Adams, who said that: “anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.”

So, I’m being cautious. Nevertheless, I’m becoming aware of a rising tide of discontent regarding Big Tech, social media and smartphone use. A number of people I’ve met recently are also starting to articulate a future with no internet in it or at the very least a future where we have a significantly altered and re-balanced relationship with the internet and our devices.

Exhibit 1. A London lawyer in his twenties that I met last week could foresee a time when people become so disillusioned with the internet, smart phones and social media that they drift away from it. Key issues for him were data security, individual privacy and a lack of censorship with regard to unacceptable material (e.g. easy access of pornography by young kids with smartphones at school).

Exhibit 2. I forecast a Big Tech Backlash two years ago and it appears on my map of megatrends published back in May. I was in Silicon Valley a few weeks ago and while I’m used to reading articles about Facebook being the anti-Christ there was a fairly hostile opinion piece about Google in the US edition of Wired magazine of all places. There was also an article about throwing technology out of younger years education in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Exhibit 3: I’m starting to see words like ‘addition’ being used on an almost daily basis in relation to digital technology.

Exhibit 4: The attitudes and behaviour of Uber recently/generally.

Exhibit 5: The fact that owning the latest smart phone isn’t cool in parts of Silicon Valley. (see also the popularity of ‘dumb phones’).

Exhibit: 6: UK schools starting to end their ‘do as you want/anything goes’ policy regarding the use of technology on school premises. One school I know personally has gone as far as banning pupils from using mobiles during the day. iPad hysteria in educational circles also seems to have died down.

Exhibit 7: Remember e-cards? Exactly. They were the future a decade ago, but it eventually dawned on us that digital can be sterile and characterless while analogue can be sensory. People are sending me handwritten cards again. Also witness the re-birth of vinyl records, paper books and fountains pens. Sending someone an e-card for Xmas might be convenient or cheap, but it can signify that you too are cheap and can’t be bothered to invest time or effort in a relationship. Can deep human needs and desires trump convenience or price?

It should be noted here (because it rarely is) that digital and physical are different on many levels. It’s not so much embracing the one and rejecting the other (a rather binary outlook) but rather working out which is better in a particular context or circumstance.

Exhibit 8: If digital tech is so great why do so many senior people working for companies like Apple and Google send their kids to schools like the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, where there’s virtually no computer to be found? Schools such as this one are increasingly arguing that computers and learning don’t mix well, diminishing attention, inhibiting creativity, and weakening human relationships. This might please Eric Schmidt at Google, who once said, ‘I still believe that sitting down and reading a book is the best way to really learn something.’ (See exhibit 6).

Exhibit 9: The behaviour of teens. Filters on Instagram are becoming passe. Facebook is dead in the water in developed markets and back in schools smart kids are revising using paper cards because, as one explained to me: “you remember things better.”

Exhibit 10: Not an exhibit, but an idea. There are surely events that could radically reshape the digital landscape. What if Google or Facebook were redefined as publishers rather than technology platforms, for example? What if they were regulated in exacatly the same way as a newspaper or TV station? What if they were viewed as monopolies and broken up? Or what if Google simply decided to charge a cent for every search? The biggest vulnerability beyond all this, it seems to me, is simply that the ad model breaks down. Take advertising away and a significant chunk of the internet simply ceases to exist.

These are minor and largely anecdotal examples, but worth watching all the same.

BTW, one thing that isn’t being commonly discussed, surprisingly, is the idea that the data that many tech companies create value from is our data, stolen from us largely without our explicit consent. (oh please, you think people really read those terms and conditions?)

The on-demand economy

Two interesting conversations last week. The first concerned generational attitudes to privacy. A friend was considering putting their home on Airbnb. His daughter (22) thought it was a great idea. His wife (40 something) was horrified. It exposed differing attitudes to not only privacy but possessions. Ownership Vs. access too. I thought it was interesting.

The second conversation was with a retailer. I had long thought that the new ‘on demand’ economy had a small glitch, which was its business model and economics. Essentially, retailers aren’t making any money on instant (same day) delivery. Customers won’t pay much more than a few pounds to have something delivered on the same day, but it costs more than this to do it. Not sustainable, unless someone can unlock value somewhere or possibly bundle the delivery cost into something else or support it with something else (ads?).

No time to be a kid these days

I’m aware of students that no longer attend university lectures, preferring instead to watch their lectures online at 1.5x speed (going backwards if they don’t understand something). However, I was having a chat with someone today and heard a new twist on this. Someone they know doesn’t have time to read their small child a book at bedtime. So the child has been given various audio books (or maybe the child found their own audio books I can’t recall) and the kid listens to bedtime stories at 1.5x speed.

Rage Rooms (a weak signal)

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A while ago, in my book Future Vision, I wrote about people destroying technology for fun (extract above). This wasn’t an existing trend, but one I could see coming. Well it’s come true. In the USA, Canada, Russia and Italy people are setting up ‘Rage Rooms’ where people can pay $3 per minute to destroy everything from TVs to computers with a baseball bat or sledgehammer. There’s a even been a pop up Rage Room in New York and there’s a company called Tantrums in LA. whose slogan is “we break things.”

Meanwhile, and clearly connected, a poll in the US by CNN/ORC has found that 71 per cent of Americans are either “very” or “somewhat angry” about “the way things are going on in the country today.”

Breaking stuff isn’t a new thing. In the UK we’ve had crockery and plate smashing at fairgrounds for hundreds of years. But this is different. This is a cascade of rage. I’m telling you people, this is a very strong weak signal and indicative of something quite nasty potentially.

Quote of the Week… and much, much more

So much to think about at the moment, which is why I’ve been rather absent of late. I’m working on something looking at the future of water, some provocation cards for a Tech Foresight 2016 event and something on risk for London Business School.

But more interesting than all of this is something I heard on the radio this morning. Don’t even ask why I was listening to Katy Perry but I was and a song called Part of Me came on. One of the lines was:

“I just want to throw away my phone away. Find out who is really there for me.”

Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to this, but there’s another song I heard not so long ago by James Blunt with the line:

“Seems that everyone we know’s out there waiting by a phone wondering why they feel alone.”

And last week someone was telling me how students at an art college had abandoned ‘digital installations’ in favour of painting and drawing. Are we seeing some kind of rebalancing emerging here?

Oh, the quote…

“If we allow our self-congratulatory adoration of technology to distract us from our own contact with each other, then somehow the original agenda has been lost.
” – Jaron Lanier.

Here we go again?

Wasting time at the hell hole known as Gatwick Airport and reading the New York Times. Not sure which is more of a worry, Donald Trump or the European Central Bank paying banks to take their loans (basically, you pay back less than you borrow, which is a bit like getting a free small car with a large car loan). I see trouble ahead! Also reading about the cooling off of prime real estate in New York and auctions that fail to sell things.

I’m almost certainly reading too much intro this, but the fact that six near identical Ferrari Testarossa’s from the late 1980s and early 1990s were on sale at Bonham’s auction in Paris last month may say something significant about the state of the global economy. The fact that half of them failed to sell may say something too. In short, the bubble seems to be reaching its peak and the top end of this and many other markets may be calming down, which might be a prelude to a crash. Weak signal? Quite possibly.

The Rise of Evensong – a ‘Weak Signal’?

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This seems odd, but actually makes a lot of sense. Cathedrals, churches and chapels across the country are reporting growing attendances at evensong, a religious service that combines contemplative music with the 16th Century language of the Book of Common Prayer.

Why might this be? I suspect that a few factors might be involved. Firstly, the time slot. Sundays are now busy days for most people so after work works. Secondly, mindfulness is all the rage and this links with quiet contemplative spaces. Lastly, the rise of evensong might be related to digital distraction where people are constantly bombarded from the internet and mobile media. Or maybe it’s that evensong is the atheist’s favourite type of spirituality.

Newspaper article on the rise of evensong here and a good blog post quoting the Salisbury Cathedral News here.

Weak signals (Digital v Human)

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A few things I’ve noticed recently. First my own behaviour. I never listen to voicemails nowadays – it takes too long. Second, have you noticed how few websites are now giving you the option to print an article? (see above). For me this doesn’t matter with small bits of information, but if you are trying to digest/understand something of significant length/complexity I think it does.

The other thing I saw yesterday, which is either a weak signal or a blip, is that digital solutionism seems to be suffering a few defeats. Facebook has said that it is returning to “the qualitative” – which I think means people, while both Apple and Google have started to use people to assemble playlists.

Is this a tentative embrace of human judgment, empathy and intuition or just a bit of PR manipulation?

Sorry, another stat

This can’t be right. A poll by Populus/The Times says that 14% of UK 18-24-year-olds and 12% of 25-34-year-olds have “warm feelings” towards Islamic State (IS). This compares to 5% of UK adults (?) and 1% of over 65s. If it is right it’s a weak signal and a worrying one.