culture
coronavirus
technology
2020: The Year the Internet Age Truly Began
Israeli Knesset (2010-2013)
Angel Investor, Entrepreneur
1
0
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale
June 20th, 2020
Comparing assessments of COVID-19’s future impact “to the Gartner Hype Cycle, where technologies are first underhyped, then overhyped, then underhyped, and then eventually reach their potential” is an astute observation.
Indeed, after initially ignoring the virus, when the extent of its direct impact on the daily lives of billions of people across the globe shocked us by its magnitude, many of us joined “team seismic change”. But as lockdowns ended across the world and many places resumed a measure of normalcy, many of us swung back to “team blip”.
But Balaji’s observation probably gives us a more realistic assessment, that over time, and in retrospect, we would recognize COVID-19 as a great accelerator of deep social and technological changes across the world.
For the past two decades the assumption has been that the internet has changed the world, not realizing that large chunks of human activity remained untouched by it, particularly in education, health, and government, areas that in almost all countries account for over half of economic activity.
COVID-19 is forcing and accelerating unprecedented change in those areas. During the lockdowns many of us have been forced to homeschool our children. In doing so, some of us have been realizing a parenting fantasy or living a parenting nightmare, or both. Either way, we’ve become aware of the many ways in which teaching and learning can take place at home. Even many adults have had time to pursue the wealth of learning materials including classes and lectures from the world’s best universities.
Those who are teachers or professors were forced to suddenly adapt to online teaching, even if it hadn’t been part of their professional regimen previously. Content migration processes that were expected to take years, if not decades, have been condensed into a few months or weeks. Maybe some have found this new way of teaching quite useful, and even, as one professor at a top university recently confessed, far more productive. Online courses, language apps and just about anything that can be learned through a computer screen, from cooking to computing, are experiencing a global boom.
Healthcare, too, is going through an accelerated process of digitization. As non-COVID-19 patients avoid going to doctors and hospitals for non-urgent needs, they’re growing increasingly accustomed to using digital health services—speaking to their doctors on video, getting advice and receiving prescriptions electronically (in some cases, even having medicines delivered at home). All this is done without the need to expose themselves or others to sickness.
Even the lumbering machinery of government has been forced into an accelerated process of digitization. With millions registering for unemployment benefits and newly minted COVID-19 relief programs, governments must scramble to get money into people’s hands before evictions and bankruptcies cripple their economies. New York City is even allowing digital registration for marriage licenses. And City Hall is providing electronic wedding services. Digital elections, once seen as an experimental rarity, may become the norm.
The internet has changed some things. COVID-19 will ensure it changes the rest.
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