This archive report was first published on 10 July 2020.
Published on July 10, 2020, the COVID-19 season has brought about a significant shift in the way we live and interact with each other. One of the most notable lessons from this season is that minimal physical interaction amongst humans is perfectly normal and attainable.
Technology has stepped in to fill the voids left by physical and social distancing, enabling us to continue learning, shopping, earning a livelihood, and keeping our lives on the go remotely. Many things that we previously insisted on presenting ourselves physically for have proven to be time wasters.
Thanks to technology, staying in touch remotely is possible, and the digital future seems to have gotten here sooner than it had been projected to arrive. However, this has also brought about challenges, including issues around universal accessibility and affordability of technology.
Moreover, the digital future has also brought about attendant risks delivered by humans, who exhibit all sorts of crazy behaviors, some bordering on animism. The season has been marked by myriad snippets of the best and worst of interpersonal relations.
On the work front, physical meetings are turning out to be not always prudent use of time. Conferences that have had people crisscrossing continents drawing fat per diems to attend need not take that much effort to be part of. From your living area, dressed in sleeping clothes, it is just as possible to meet other people drawn from across the world and to engage.
However, the risk of cyberattack is omnipresent, particularly on virtual public forums. Cyber terrorists are keeping busy with the increased traffic on their shores, attempting to access confidential information and bank accounts or sending fabricated sob stories to contacts trying to swindle them by begging for emergency bailout.
It is difficult to figure out why anyone would unleash porn in a webinar or target virtual classrooms. Unfortunately, this is what is now being referred to as the new normal. It is how we are going to live this life henceforth. We better be prepared to roll like this.
