What are the skills to develop?
Surviving is a relative concept: you can do without much, but beyond easy philosophy, an immersive world like ours characterized by a huge amount of information, is a jungle difficult to cross without having strong shoulders. Here are 5 skills to focus on for the next few years:
1 - Knowing how to manage communications
According to Nielsen, European teenagers sent and received an average of 2010 texts per month in the first quarter of 3000. The study center also found that more than 4 out of 5 teenagers sleep with the phone next to the bed and are reluctant to turn it off. In the segment of young people, cases of chronic insomnia and information stress are increasing: hospitals will have new bread in the future for these new types of hyper-connected adults.
Communication is a key element of our lives, but if taken to extremes (too much or too little) it can have terrible consequences.
We continually open new communication channels for games, social networks, smartphone applications, and this will cause 'excessive contact' anxiety as well as 'detachment anxiety' when we have to do without it. The right ability to manage our communications is a skill that no one teaches today: we will have to learn it.
2 - Knowing how to seize opportunities
The average American freelancer has already done 11 different jobs within the first 30 years of life: at this rate, within a decade the world will be full of freelancers who by the time they reach 30 have already worked on hundreds of different projects. Short-term work (despite what precarious workers all over the globe hope) will replace 'permanent' or long-term work for many.
The world of work will only become even more fluid, and the centrifugal force will be the digital market, which will bring sellers and buyers, demand and offer, need and satisfaction faster and faster.
The opportunities will be short, fast, numerous: the ability to search for them, select them and put them to good use will be a very important ingredient for achieving success in the society of the near future.
3 - Manage technology
More and more technological devices enter our lives minute by minute: how many do we have to pay attention to? The technology we use defines our ability to keep up with the times. For many years this process of choice has been relegated to self-styled experts in a sector.
The management of technology goes far beyond the purchase of the latest fashion product: it will increasingly define our belonging to one cultural area rather than another. In the not too distant future, knowing 'what technology we are' will help us to orient ourselves no less than knowing what our political or ideological alignment is.
4 - Leave a trace of yourself
How will we be remembered by future generations? How will our successes, our failures, our efforts be perceived? I have a clear idea of my grandparents and their generation, just as I have one related to the generation of my parents.
It's mine? What will he leave for posterity? People today have many opportunities to provide information 'for future reference': there is much more communication between generations than there was in the past. We can transmit a huge amount of photos, videos and documents online to our heritage.
My idea is to produce as much material as possible: one day my great-granddaughter could speak with a virtual version of me: I will help her to be as faithful as possible to her original, giving me a pinch of eternity.
5 - Manage relationships
In an increasingly 'social' world we will end up meeting thousands of people, but what kind of relationship will we have with them? How will we be able to qualify and quantify the value of these contacts?
The more an individual's social network extends, the more difficult it is for their ties to remain strong and stable: we tend to instinctively apply different rules to those with whom we have ties of different strength, but the very way of establishing relationships is changing radically in the digital era.
How much of this new perspective on relationships will we bring to everyday bonds? Marriage isn't necessarily a dying institution (not in the medium term, at least), but redefining the way we bond is certainly a crucial skill to consider for the future.
