We know little about how the COVID-19 pandemic will end, especially in terms of the number of deaths and the effects on the global economy. But one thing seems to emerge: the coronavirus is acting as an accelerator, and life after the coronavirus will be profoundly different.
It will create a much more fragmented, decentralized and devolved world in which paradoxically we will feel more connected than ever, while maintaining our literal and symbolic distance from each other.
In a year (and even a decade) we will live, learn and work online much more than we do now.
In short, rapid innovations
Welcome to the 21st century that we dreamed about 30 years ago, but never had the energy or focus to actually implement.
By the 90s, champions of digital culture and what was then called cyberspace “saw” a world that all could enter without the privileges or prejudices accorded by race, economic power, military might, or station of birth.”
The first issues of Wired promised a peaceful “Digital Revolution” that would change our lives and create new real and virtual worlds.
In 1990 George Gilder in his book “Life after television” he spoke of networked machines that he called “teleworkers” and dreamed of a world in which political and corporate hierarchies would be destroyed by users.
The intermediaries and obstacles of politics, technology and centralized economics would have been eliminated. The "teleworkers" would have revitalized "the family, religion, education, art" and would have "handed down a new civilization to the new generations".
We almost did it
Much of this has come true in some recognizable forms. With the rise of the Internet and its interface, the World Wide Web as a global platform, the world has become much more inclusive and all participants, even the poorest among us, have more options and more control over how we work, what we consume and how we relate to each other.
To be honest though, it didn't go exactly how we wanted it. The digital future is metaphorically stationary in our living room like a complicated contraption that, once purchased, is rarely turned on and now serves to place the clothes on it.
Our response to the coronavirus will change our history.
Our response to COVID-19 has the potential to change everything. The changes that will follow the end of this crisis could fundamentally change the way we work, study, receive medical care, shop and consume culture.
Distance learning
Over 30 countries around the world have already closed schools of all levels, trying to organize distance learning programs to save educational continuity and the right to education. We still don't know if the school year is already over or not.
Educational institutions at all levels are struggling to increase their ability to stream lectures. It is not just a question of bandwidth, but of educating teachers on how to teach, and students on how to learn via the Internet.
Yes, distance learning has grown since 2000, but less than 6% of all public students take most courses online. There is every reason to believe that once they get a sense of the flexibility and offerings available, these numbers will increase substantially.
The minister of education Lucia Azzolina and that of innovation Paola pisano they are working in parallel to ensure that students and workers (at least those who can) fulfill their commitments on the internet.
Remote work
For many journalists and freelancers, working from home is nothing new. I myself worked from home for several years. But what many gig economy workers take for granted is anything but common. While the percentage of workers telecommuting has steadily increased over the past 20 or more years, only 3,6% of workers “currently work at home at least part-time.”
Yet over half of all employees have jobs where at least some of what they do could be done remotely. Free video and teleconferencing enabled by services like Google or Skype are exploding and won't stop when everyone is negative for the disease. It is unthinkable that working from home will not gain much in popularity (both among workers and executives) even when we can return to our traditional workplaces.
Remote purchases
Even our lives as consumers will definitely change, for both trivial and important goods and services.
Telemedicine
In recent years, for example, telemedicine has grown in popularity, especially for consultation services, but still represents less than 1% of options. Life after coronavirus will see an exponential increase in these services, especially related to medical advice. Practices that will be favored and encouraged.
Sports and entertainment
Film and football have long suffered from declining attendance, as flat screen televisions and cheap high-quality sound systems proliferate, and streaming services started offering most of what we wanted whenever we wanted it.
Even as the number of multiplexes and films continued to grow, fewer and fewer people were buying tickets for a night out. Of course, once they reopen, people will return to the cinema and stadium, but probably even fewer.
E-commerce
COVID-19 has caused Amazon shopping to explode further. The online retail giant is hiring an additional 100.000 workers in the US to meet demand in the coming weeks (or months). Alongside the usual products, online food delivery services are also on the rise.
Even before the outbreak, businesses were booming online, with sales more than doubling between 2016 and 2018, despite serving less than 10% of customers.
For at least a decade the triumph of e-commerce was just a theory. Well, this past February, online sales narrowly beat general merchandise stores, including department stores, warehouse clubs and malls. If we talk about purchases such as houses, cars and ready meals, traditional commerce still surpasses online, but this is changing rapidly, and after the coronavirus online commerce will run. Access or completely online experiences to buy cars, and even classifieds and virtual tours of houses will move massively online.
Urbanization
The tendency to concentrate in large cities could undergo a decisive reversal. In life after the coronavirus, new patterns of suburbanization will emerge, and perhaps the idea of “social distancing” will inspire that of “urban distancing.” Small-town living will be more attractive when goods and cultural offerings once available only in big cities are made readily available online or with same-day delivery. Add the fear of dense populations and infections and you will understand that COVID-19 will accelerate the dissipation of urban areas.
the Institutions
Around the world, local, state and federal governments are implementing emergency measures never seen before in peacetime. Mayors and governors have declared states of emergency and closed bars, gyms and parks, placing limits on the number of people who can gather. Yet these same leaders are also relaxing long-standing rules, at least temporarily. Today in Italy the degree in medicine has already become qualifying. To finish a school year, a minimum attendance limit of 200 days is no longer necessary. The AIFA, notoriously cautious about approving drug trials, has now almost instantly allowed a new protocol for a drug that combats the symptoms of the coronavirus.
It's just an example. If past is prologue, governments at all levels will be slow to relinquish the power they are currently wielding, but the weight of public opinion and examples from our working, cultural and commercial lives could prove an effective counterweight.
Life after the coronavirus
Hypotheses and timing about the end of this nightmare are whispered in many quarters. At least in its acute phase. In Italy we imagine a bit of respite from June, in the USA Trump has predicted that the crisis will pass in July.
Actually the Coronavirus probably it will change the next few decades much as the 11/2008 attacks and the 20 financial crisis have changed the last XNUMX years. Life after the coronavirus will be a life "produced" by the coronavirus.
Looking back at the cultural, economic and political responses to those events, it is difficult to say that the world reacted wisely. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the redemption of finance and banks despite the subprime disaster. As a society, rather than coming together, we have become increasingly polarized and distrustful of public and private institutions. Those dynamics, however predictable, have only made things worse.
This time we are on a different threshold. We are more tired and more distrustful than ever. Some part of us knows deep down that a strong response to the pandemic ultimately relies more on our actions as individuals than on the action of world leaders.
However, the most optimistic scenario is the one that leads to the future that we have been imagining for 30 years. The dream of a world where we will all be able to participate more fully, express ourselves more convincingly and live as and where we want.
Ironically, the switch will be forced by a global pandemic. A crisis that many (in my opinion not wrongly) they are comparing it to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, one of the defining events of the 20th century.
Today, life after the coronavirus, after all its death toll, could evoke the future we haven't been able to build before.
