The Coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on everyone’s lives across the UK and worldwide. Closing non-essential businesses and high-street stores have caused mass unemployment globally, in the USA 22 million workers now claim to be unemployed. However, for those still able to work from home, everything has become digital. Face to face meetings is now a thing of the past, replaced with zoom calls and digital interactions via social media. In this article I will address the question, ‘Are we being dragged further into a digital age?’.
As a society, we thought we had successfully transitioned into a digital age, with rapidly advancing technology being invented as a result of a spike in quaternary industry, which employs 10-15% of the UK workforce. The rise in online shopping has caused the death of the high street, as millennials make 54% of purchases online, and since the rapid growth of online streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon prime video, movie stores such as HMV have suffered vast losses. Social media platform Instagram reported reaching 1 billion monthly active uses in June 2018. Needless to say, our society has embraced the transition into a largely digital age.
Despite this, the Coronavirus pandemic has made people realize that before now, we were nowhere near ready to live in a fully digital age. Strict lockdown rules worldwide have highlighted the importance of face-to-face social interaction, charity Re-engage which supports the elderly to prevent loneliness has seen an 877% increase in traffic to its sign-up page. The wait time for food delivery from Sainsbury’s increased to 3 weeks and Demand for streaming sites across the globe has intensified to the extent that Amazon and Netflix have had to reduce video quality in some countries to handle the strain. We are now relying on technology more than ever before, but is this a positive thing for our society?
For once a high screen time is being seen as a positive thing. Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) has seen a daytime usage increase of 70-80%, compared to figures in February. Research shows that people who use social media actively report being happier than those who simply scroll through their feeds to which Jeremy Kant said: “If you are on social media, and you are not learning, not laughing, not being inspired or not networking, then you are using it wrong.” Additionally Silicon Valley video conferencing app Zoom reported 2.13 million downloads around the world on the 23rd of March alone. The company have increased their revenue by 85% in the last 3 months and now has a market value of $42 billion. The app allows people to contact friends and family, conduct work meetings, church service and online lessons. It is even being used by the UK cabinet. Alongside this, the entertainment industry has rallied together to produce several live-streamed concerts and live theatre shows to entertain the public and keep the passion for the arts alive. Most notably, Lady Gage put on her ‘One World: Together at Home’ concert which raised over $127 million to battle the coronavirus. The concert featured stars such as Elton John, Billie Eilish and The Rolling Stones. It is clear that as lockdown progresses we are becoming more suited to and adapted to our increasingly digital lives, but although it is likely that the virus will die down within the next 6 months, will we revert to our previous ways or will we be forced to stay in our digital bubble?
By Emily Phillips - Lady Eleanor Holles
