Murdered by Modernity

As the digital and mobile revolutions continue at breakneck speed, there is a legitimate concern that we are going to experience a technological overload. We call this concern Murdered by Modernity. By Richard Nicholls, Future Foundation.

One particularly salient manifestation of the mobile revolution has been the rise of the always-on culture, where mobiles become round-the-clock companions and where we can access any piece of information or seek any form of technological assistance from virtually any location – and at any time of the day.

We can only expect this to intensify as new connected devices emerge – not only accessories like smart watches, wristbands and even spectacles, but also the proliferation of the range of everyday objects that can connect to the internet.

In Future Foundation’s 2012 research, 50% of those surveyed now say that they never turn their mobile phone off, up from 43% in 2010 and rising to over two third of 16-34 year olds.

But despite the growth of always-on culture, not everyone is happy with it. We have seen a sharp decline over the last few years in the proportion of people who agree that “I like to be contactable on my mobile phone at all times.” This fell from 57% in 2008 to just 38% in 2012.

Of course, many have embraced this constant connectivity enthusiastically. But there is a worry that the relentless pace of technological advancement and the new behaviours it stimulates is also having detrimental effects on society.

The digital revolution is alleged to affect our concentration levels, to prevent us from forming meaningful real-life connections and to blanket us in a false sense of online security which makes us unable to function properly in the real world.

And related are fears about the surveillance society – worries about our digital and mobile footprints and the data that companies, governments and hackers have on us.

Around half of us, according to our research, would be interested in an online store that deliberately did not keep a record of our previous purchases – this demand being even stronger among under-35s.

This is a trend which draws power from a worry about the unknown. Relatively speaking, social media, the mobile internet and certainly the Internet of Things are in their nascent stages. We certainly expect to see the appearance of further worries about the effects of constant technological innovation – as well as interest in services and tools which promise to counter or alleviate its perceived effects.

The Murdered by Modernity fits alongside the trend of the Myth of Decline – the anxiety that standards and behaviours are deteriorating and that technology is encouraging us to be anti-social. We might well see more occasions where consumers are invited to digital escapism.

More holiday destinations or leisure providers could market themselves as providing tech-free refuges. Will more of us actively seek digital downtime? It seems likely.

Undrip (pictured, below) is an innovative app that plays into this trend. Launched in September 2012, it claims to aggregate the best content from a user’s various social networks and display it on one platform. Undrip can concentrate on displaying high quality and relevant content while hiding what it calls the “background noise” (check-ins, updates etc).

The Murdered by Modernity mindset is bound to gain greater prominence in the years ahead – those who vocalise their concerns about the potential dangers of our digital lives will always find an audience.

But this is not a trend that will necessarily cause contradictory feelings. We might like to complain about our always-on lifestyles and our inability to escape from technology, but we will also enjoy our ability to find information instantly with a click or a swipe and each new innovation will be welcomed with considerable enthusiasm.

Clearly, this is a trend still in its infancy, but we will surely hear more about society’s supposed digital overload in the years ahead.