Learning to Adapt to Life in the 21st Century
Technology, social media, and Covid-19 are some of the things we have had to learn to adapt to
Humanity evolves constantly, and with it comes changes that we assume will be for the better. That isn’t always the case though as there are pros and cons to everything. Why should we expect everyone to have a mobile/cellphone simply because they exist? Not everyone wants one or needs one, although there are an increasing number of people who no longer use landlines. They are however necessary for stable internet connections, and there are many who simply want to use a phone and not have a mobile phone. In the event of a power cut, the landline (as long as it’s not a digital phone) is your best bet to stay in contact with people. I remember trying to get gold of my family during Hurricane Sandy, and I could only reach them on their landlines as they had no means to charge their mobile phones.
Given that Russia is threatening to reduce gas supplies to Europe in retaliation for imposed sanctions against them due to their invasion of Russia. It looks like everyone will have to reduce their energy consumption to ensure there is enough for winter. This also means that some countries may have to revert to fossil fuels which will not make the eco-warriors happy, but how will they cope without charging their phones to contact each other? I’m all for recycling and cutting down on energy usage, but as a society we are used to the modern conveniences of central heating, washing machines, cars, mobile phones and computers, and hot water. All these require the use of energy, and Russia knows this.
If we go back to expecting people to have and use technology because it exists, do we have a right to force people to do so? Banks expect people to do their banking online which can open them up to fraud, and there are many people who don’t have computer (or want one) or don’t have a mobile phone either. Nor does everyone want online statements because the chances of checking them is slim as opposed to a hard copy in your hand. Energy companies and phone companies are the same, and now charge you for a paper statement, as opposed to giving you a discount if you opted for an online statement. I only persuaded my father to have online statements because they were all going to charge him £5 per paper copy, so basically people are being penalised for not being online. Should people be forced to go online to have a statement that they are entitled to have from a service? The companies claim it costs too much to send paper copies, but how can that be when they have been doing it for decades? What they actually mean is that it will eat into their profits, and to deter people from having paper statements they charge an amount that they know people will object to. There is a way around this, and that is to say you have impaired sight and by law they must send you a paper copy without charge, and that’s what I have done for my father.
Even people with mobile phones are being cautious as there is so much fraud and hacking going on, it makes you wonder whether it is worth it. People also expect you to have a smartphone, when a basic one that can call and text is greeted with scorn. I resisted having apps for years because they take up memory, track you, and aren’t always secure, and I still loathe them. People forget websites and apps track whatever you search for and where you go, and it’s all for marketing but is rather unsettling. I have been doing a lot of research for the Ukraine and Russia articles, and my location based on my searches came up as being in Russia and my searches came up in Russian too (I am not in Russia at all). We are told to scan here, scan there—I don’t want to, but if you hover your phone over the image by accident it does it whether you want it to or not and tracks you!
Then comes the issue of social media, something that the world is learning to live with, yet as it becomes more invasive, more people are deleting their accounts or are making them private. Aside from hacking, and people obtaining personal information to commit fraud there are privacy issues. When Facebook and Twitter first started out these issues weren’t of great concern because the users were limited to social groups, but when it became widespread, there were accounts attacking and trolling people, and fake accounts set up to humiliate people. I saw some of these incidents and they were harmful, where if someone disagreed with another, as an act of revenge they would report the account so the person would lose the account. One distraught woman who merely expressed an opposing opinion, lost her account due to a bully reporting her and had to beg Facebook to return her account as it had photos of family members who had passed away and those were the only copies.
As social media is now being used for marketing, like loyalty cards, these track and analyse our lives to an extent that we may not fully comprehend. Keywords are tracked each time you have an email sent or received on gmail, every time you make an internet search, and ads are tailored to those keywords. It is invasive, and there is little privacy left, and in return we get some discounts, points on cards, and free storage on a gmail account. Can you live without it all? I know many people who choose not to have loyalty cards despite the discounts on offer because they value their privacy more. I use social media less these days because of the invasive nature where there is facial recognition, location tracking, and also that they can own some of the intellectual property rights of images that you choose to share, hence why many photographers choose not to use social media.
Covid-19 has changed society and the way we live, and has in some respects made people more responsible for their actions. For some the enforced responsibility has made people adapt their behaviour (especially those who did contract Covid-19 or had family members who did) while those responsibilities lapsed with others because the authorities no longer enforced them. There are some segments of society who mock those who choose to wear masks—it’s a personal choice and doesn’t affect them so why should they care. Then there are others that do not respect the personal space of those who choose to wear masks. Queuing is the worst as you are trapped, and if people are wearing masks fine, but not many people are choosing to despite the Covid-19 infections rising. If you can take precautions, then the logical and sensible thing to do is to use them isn’t it?
Many people carry on in life and like to stay inside their bubble and ignore the ‘bad’ ways of the world, but it catches up with us eventually. I have a good friend who lives out in the middle of nowhere, has ditched his mobile phone, has no social media, and doesn’t want to know about the war in Ukraine. He checks his email once or twice a month and that’s it. However, there is a chance of another World War, and it would be remiss of anyone to ignore this as those did prior to the First and Second World Wars. Like Covid-19, we expected a lockdown and what it would entail and we survived. Some businesses didn’t while others scammed the Covid grants, but it made people look at what they actually needed in life versus what they thought they needed.
Soon it will be flu season again, and the call for jabs will go out, and we expect another variant of Covid-19 to surface at the same time. Life is cyclic, and we adjust and make tweaks as and when necessary. Learning to live with others is part of life, but it seems harder when people are more selfish these days, and who act with elevated levels of entitlement. One can only roll their eyes, for in time they will learn that a little humility can go a long way.