Can you imagine standing on a random street corner waiting for a stranger to walk by so you could stop him or her to propose marriage? Sort of what happens with some websites…
The above is the intro from my most recent article for Upsize magazine. Here’s a link to How to make your website smarter, to build customer trust.
Recently the Harvard Business Review, Foreign Affairs and The Atlantic all had cover stories on whether technology is a friend or foe.
“What may be looming is something different: an era of technological unemployment, in which computer scientists and software engineers essentially invent us out of work, and the total number of jobs declines steadily and permanently” stated the article in The Atlantic.
That’s scary.
Many experts are seeing a “new normal, where the expectation that work will be a central feature of adult life dissipates for a significant portion of society.” At Oxford, researchers have stated machines might take half of all U.S. jobs within 20 years.
MIT Management Professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue in “Will Humans Go the Way of Horses” in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs, make the simple and clear point… we humans will decide how technology our lives and futures. They state “We humans are a deeply social… the desire for human connection carries over to our economic lives.” They go onto argue that in light of these technological changes, governments should be passing education reform, stimulating entrepreneurship and investing in research.
Does social media make the world a better or worse place? Are we zombies tethered with a digital leash to the office through mobile texting and emailing or stressed because our updates on Facebook aren’t as impressive as a high school friend’s recent vacation?
A study by Rutgers and Pew Research Center found social media doesn’t make its users have higher stress levels. The director of the study, Lee Rainie stated “The fear of missing out and jealousy of high-living friends with better vacations and happier kids than everybody else turned out to be not true… The exception was when Facebook users saw news of close friends going through stressful events like unemployment or illness.” That sounds like empathy to me!
Fearing technology is nothing new wrote Claire Cain Miller in The New York Times, “Telephones, watches and televisions were similarly believed to interrupt people’s lives and pressure them to be more productive. In some ways they did, but the benefits offset the stressors. New technology is making our lives different, but not necessarily more stressful than it would have been otherwise.”
Technology superstars like Bill Gates are challenging the wisdom of artificial intelligence. Others are blaming technology for unemployment and stagnant growth. Parents are blaming technology—constant gaming or being socially connected on phones—for making kids dumb.
Are we at a technology tipping point?
The article, “A World without Work” in The Atlantic looks at the impact of technology. Asking if technology is good or bad is like asking a farmer if rain is good or bad. My dad was a farmer and he could have told you it depends… when, where, and what amount matter.
The The End of Work was published by Jeremy Rifkin in 1995. He stated “worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors… (there would be)… a devastating impact from automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees, while an elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy.”
What do you think? Is life better or worse than the mid-90’s? Before you answer that, check your email and texts on your phone, watch a streaming movie for free on your laptop, and stay in touch with friends around the world without paying a penny for a phone call or letter.
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