Twenty years ago, futurist John Naisbitt wrote High Tech/High Touch, an examination of technology and a follow-on to his 1982 book Megatrends. It was Megatrends which predicted that people immersed in technology would be driven to seek human contact.
High Tech/High Touch essentially concluded that the trend remains intact, shown in the prominence of both consumer technology markets and products, services and markets that offer escape from technology.
As the Covid-19 pandemic wears on, increasing our reliance on technology and restricting human contact, Naisbitt’s observations still hold. The more we are now forced to use technology, the more important will actual “high touch” matter.
It is almost Newtonian: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Kept indoors, demand for outdoor activities has grown significantly. Forced not to travel, people will want to travel. Required to interact virtually, people will want face-to-face encounters.
The conventional wisdom that “everything has changed” suggests disruptive change in work and living habits that are permanent. That likely will prove to be a one-sided analysis.
Post-pandemic behavior might be more unexpected than is commonly suspected, for several reasons. First, linear extrapolation from the present nearly always proves wrong. Non-linear change is more likely, an argument the “everything has changed” view also suggests.
But non-linearity cuts both ways. We might well see non-linear regression to the mean, as well as accelerated change of behavior.
Many trends that already were underway before the pandemic will be accelerated to an extent, though not nearly so much as many seem to believe. Naisbitt’s observations suggest why: to the extent we continue to work remotely, more often, we also are going to want and desire face-to-face contact. Unable to freely travel, humans will want to do so again.
Zoom is not a perfect, or nearly perfect substitute for face-to-face interactions. People will want to get away from their screens, to the extent they are forced to rely on them.
The Newtonian reaction to high tech will be high touch.
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