{"id":17902,"date":"2020-04-01T18:44:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T18:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-weve-built.html"},"modified":"2020-04-01T18:44:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T18:44:16","slug":"what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-weve-built","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-weve-built.html","title":{"rendered":"What does a pandemic say about the tech we\u2019ve built?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a joke*<\/span> being reshared on chat apps that takes the form of a multiple-choice question \u2014 asking who\u2019s the leading force in workplace digital transformation? The red-lined punchline is not the CEO or CTO, but: C) COVID-19.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s likely more than a grain of truth underpinning the quip. The novel coronavirus is pushing a lot of metaphorical buttons right now. \u201cPause\u201d buttons for people and industries, as large swathes of the world\u2019s population face quarantine conditions that can resemble house arrest. The majority of offline social and economic activities are suddenly off limits.<\/p>\n

Such major pauses in our modern lifestyle may even turn into a full reset, over time. The world as it was, where mobility of people has been all but taken for granted \u2014 regardless of the environmental costs of so much commuting and indulged wanderlust \u2014 may never return to \u201cbusiness as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

If global leadership rises to the occasion, then the coronavirus crisis offers an opportunity to rethink how we structure our societies and economies \u2014 to make a shift toward lower carbon alternatives. After all, how many physical meetings do you really need when digital connectivity is accessible and reliable? As millions more office workers log onto the day job from home, that number suddenly seems vanishingly small.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 is clearly strengthening the case for broadband to be a utility \u2014 as so much more activity is pushed online. Even social media seems to have a genuine community purpose during a moment of national crisis, when many people can only connect remotely, even with their nearest neighbours.<\/p>\n

Hence the reports of people stuck at home flocking back to Facebook<\/a> to sound off in the digital town square. Now that the actual<\/em> high street is off limits, the vintage social network is experiencing a late second wind.<\/p>\n

Facebook <\/a> understands this sort of higher societal purpose already, of course. Which is why it\u2019s been so proactive about building features that nudge users to \u201cmark yourself safe\u201d during extraordinary events like natural disasters, major accidents and terrorist attacks. (Or indeed, why it encouraged politicians to get into bed with its data platform in the first place \u2014 no matter the cost to democracy<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In less fraught times, Facebook\u2019s \u201cpurpose\u201d can be loosely summed to \u201ckilling time.\u201d But with ever more sinkholes being drilled by the attention economy, that\u2019s a function under ferocious and sustained attack.<\/p>\n

Over the years the tech giant has responded by engineering ways to rise back to the top of the social heap \u2014 including spying on<\/a> and buying up competition<\/a>, or directly cloning rival products<\/a>. It\u2019s been pulling off this trick, by hook or by crook<\/a>, for over a decade. Albeit, this time Facebook can\u2019t take any credit for the traffic uptick; a pandemic is nature\u2019s dark pattern design.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most interesting about this virally disrupted moment is how much of the digital technology that\u2019s been built out online over the past two decades could very well have been designed for living through just such a dystopia.<\/p>\n

Seen through this lens, VR should<\/em> be having a major moment. A face computer that swaps out the stuff your eyes can actually see with a choose-your-own-digital-adventure of virtual worlds to explore, all from the comfort of your living room? What problem are you fixing, VR?<\/a> Well, the conceptual limits of human lockdown in the face of a pandemic quarantine right now, actually\u2026<\/p>\n

Virtual reality has never been a compelling proposition versus<\/a> the rich and textured opportunity of real life, except within very narrow and niche bounds. Yet all of a sudden, here we all are \u2014 with our horizons drastically narrowed and real-life news that\u2019s ceaselessly harrowing. So it might yet end up a wry punchline to another multiple choice joke: \u201cMy next vacation will be: A) Staycation, B) The spare room, C) VR escapism.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s videoconferencing that\u2019s actually having the big moment<\/a>, though. Turns out even a pandemic can\u2019t make VR go viral. Instead, long-lapsed friendships are being rekindled over Zoom group chats or Google Hangouts. And Houseparty \u2014 a video chat app \u2014 has seen surging downloads as barflies seek out alternative night life with their usual watering-holes shuttered.<\/p>\n

Bored celebs are TikToking. Impromptu concerts are being live-streamed from living rooms via Instagram <\/a> and Facebook Live. All sorts of folks are managing social distancing, and the stress of being stuck at home alone (or with family), by distant socializing: signing up to remote book clubs and discos; joining virtual dance parties and exercise sessions from bedrooms; taking a few classes together; the quiet pub night with friends has morphed seamlessly into a bring-your-own-bottle group video chat.<\/p>\n

This is not normal \u2014 but nor is it surprising. We\u2019re living in the most extraordinary time. And it seems a very human response to mass disruption and physical separation (not to mention the trauma of an ongoing public health emergency that\u2019s killing thousands of people a day) to reach for even a moving pixel of human comfort. Contactless human contact is better than none at all.<\/p>\n

Yet the fact all these tools are already out there, ready and waiting for us to log on and start streaming, should send a dehumanizing chill down society\u2019s backbone.<\/p>\n

It underlines quite how much consumer technology is being designed to reprogram how we connect with each other, individually and in groups, in order that uninvited third parties can cut a profit.<\/p>\n

Back in the pre-COVID-19 era, a key concern<\/a> being attached to social media was its ability to hook users and encourage passive feed consumption \u2014 replacing genuine human contact with voyeuristic screening of friends\u2019 lives. Studies have linked the tech to loneliness and depression. Now that we\u2019re literally unable to go out and meet friends, the loss of human contact is real and stark. So being popular online in a pandemic really isn\u2019t any kind of success metric<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Houseparty, for example, self-describes as a \u201cface to face social network\u201d \u2014 yet it\u2019s quite the literal opposite; you\u2019re foregoing<\/em> face-to-face contact if you\u2019re getting virtually together in app-wrapped form.<\/p>\n

The implication of Facebook\u2019s COVID-19 traffic bump is that the company\u2019s business model thrives on societal disruption and mainstream misery. Which, frankly, we knew already. Data-driven adtech is another way of saying it\u2019s been engineered to spray you with ad-flavored dissatisfaction by spying on what you get up to. The coronavirus just hammers the point home.<\/p>\n

The fact we have so many high-tech tools on tap for forging digital connections might feel like amazing serendipity in this crisis \u2014 a freemium bonanza for coping with terrible global trauma. But such bounty points to a horrible flip side: It\u2019s the attention economy that\u2019s infectious and insidious. Before \u201cnormal life\u201d plunged off a cliff, all this sticky tech was labelled \u201ceveryday use;\u201d not \u201cbreak out in a global emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s never been clearer how these attention-hogging apps and services are designed to disrupt and monetize us; to embed themselves in our friendships and relationships in a way that\u2019s subtly dehumanizing; re-routing emotion and connections; nudging us to swap in-person socializing for virtualized fuzz designed to be data-mined and monetized by the same middlemen who\u2019ve inserted themselves unasked into our private and social lives.<\/p>\n

Captured and recompiled in this way, human connection is reduced to a series of dilute and\/or meaningless transactions; the platforms deploying armies of engineers to knob-twiddle and pull strings to maximize ad opportunities, no matter the personal cost.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also no accident we\u2019re seeing more of the vast and intrusive underpinnings of surveillance capitalism emerge, as the COVID-19 emergency rolls back some of the obfuscation that\u2019s used to shield these business models from mainstream view in more normal times. The trackers are rushing to seize and colonize an opportunistic purpose.<\/p>\n

Tech and ad giants are falling over themselves to get involved with offering data or apps for COVID-19 tracking<\/a>. They\u2019re already in the mass surveillance business, so there\u2019s likely never felt like a better moment than the present pandemic for the big data lobby to press the lie that individuals don\u2019t care about privacy<\/a>, as governments cry out for tools and resources<\/a> to help save lives.<\/p>\n

First the people-tracking platforms dressed up attacks on human agency as \u201crelevant ads.\u201d Now the data industrial complex is spinning police-state levels of mass surveillance<\/a> as pandemic-busting corporate social responsibility. How quick the wheel turns.<\/p>\n

But platforms should be careful what they wish for. Populations that find themselves under house arrest with their phones playing snitch<\/a> might be just as quick to round on high-tech gaolers as they\u2019ve been to sign up for a friendly video chat in these strange and unprecedented times.<\/p>\n

Oh, and Zoom<\/a> (and others<\/a>) \u2014 more people might actually read your \u201cprivacy policy<\/a>\u201d now they\u2019ve got so much time to mess about online. And that really is a risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Every day there’s a fresh Zoom privacy\/security horror story. Why now, all at once? <\/p>\n

It’s simple: the problems aren’t new but suddenly everyone is forced to use Zoom. That means more people discovering problems and also more frustration because opting out isn’t an option. https:\/\/t.co\/O9h8SHerok<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) March 31, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

*Source is a private Twitter account called @MBA_ish<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/SWizwt-14eU\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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