[The World on the Page] The Digital Future: Living It Was Underwhelming

A Digital Future Accelerated by COVID-19:
Not a Utopia of Infinite Freedom,
But a Dystopia of Isolation
Recognizing the Value of Analog in Everyday Life

On June 5th, Apple held its annual developer conference in Cupertino, California, USA. At the conference, Apple unveiled a new device resembling ski goggles. It was the Vision Pro, a headset computer. When worn on the head, the device displays the surrounding scenery right before the eyes, with various Apple applications (apps) appearing in augmented reality form on top. It gives the sensation of running computer programs in three-dimensional space, much like what is often seen in sci-fi movies.

Apple's new MR headset 'Vision Pro'
Photo by Yonhap News Agency

Operated by the eyes, fingers, and voice, the Vision Pro offers users a mixed reality experience where analog reality and digital reality blend together. The emergence of such computers that engage all five senses changes the way we use computers in entirely new ways, enhancing user immersion and rapidly advancing a digital world where the barriers between reality and virtuality become meaningless.

Whenever innovative machines that push out the analog past and propel our lives toward a digital future emerge one after another, familiar prophecies praising a digital paradise are repeated. Praises resound everywhere, claiming that a world made up of artificial intelligence, big data, mobile computers, electric vehicles, the metaverse (extended virtual world), and blockchain will transform our lives to be happier, healthier, smarter, and more prosperous.

In What Digital Can’t Do (Across), David Sax pours ink on our rosy-colored digital future. He questions whether the new normal formed by remote work, online classes, streaming culture, online shopping, and video conferencing is truly leading our lives in a better direction.

According to Sax, the COVID-19 pandemic was a historic experiment that showed how a digital-centered world, once thought to be a distant future, actually changes our lives. To avoid infection, people worked from home instead of offices, ordered food and goods online instead of visiting stores, enjoyed streaming performances in their living rooms instead of going to theaters, and children attended classes via screens instead of classrooms. Then, the digital choir declared the arrival of a new normal era and made a fuss as if humanity would never return to the old analog routine.

However, the analog world we actually see, hear, feel, touch, taste, and smell did not lose much strength. As soon as the power of the COVID-19 virus somewhat weakened, people poured back onto the streets. Companies gave up on remote work, stores and restaurants filled with people, and schools called children back to classrooms. The full dominance of digital daily life quickly deflated like a bubble. Sax says, "The digital future has arrived! But it was quite disappointing."

This book critically reconstructs the digital future of the past three years by interviewing over 200 experts and citizens worldwide. Digital technology allowed us to keep working, studying, communicating, and shopping, but it did not lead our lives in a better direction. A digital-centered life was closer to a suffocating dystopia of isolation than a utopia of infinite freedom.

Remote work and video conferencing brought a strong sense of liberation to our lives in a very short time. Many companies declared full remote work and provided digital collaboration tools, vowing to banish 20th-century relics like office spaces forever. Employees welcomed this enthusiastically. Remote work felt like a solution to crowded commutes, cramped offices, uncomfortable attire, supervisors’ surveillance and favoritism, blatant sexism and racism, unnecessary politicking, and soulless human relationships. Digital technology seemed to promise a future company life focused solely on work and evaluated only by ability.

But it was an illusion. As remote work continued, problems arose regardless of nationality, age, career, or industry. Working hours lengthened and performance declined. Anxiety and depression worsened as work and home life blurred, and feelings of emptiness and exhaustion increased. As human relationships weakened and conversations and small talk disappeared, work became boring and lost its sense of well-being.

Work is not simply tasks but a complex experience that includes human relationships. Only in relationships where countless daily moments are shared and trivial small talk accumulates can humans capture and exchange something important. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said, creativity is a collective activity. Without a solid place where ideas can unfold, innovation cannot even begin, and without trustworthy colleagues, creative ideas and nonsense cannot be distinguished. The workspace itself, which facilitates communication and builds trust, is an essential element of knowledge creation.

Schools, too, were not just places for teaching and learning knowledge. The digital future claimed that education without classrooms would be possible using video learning and artificial intelligence, and that personalized education would further improve learning efficiency. However, technology hardly saved education.

During the pandemic, school education repeatedly faltered. Students could not fully participate in classes, learned less, and their grades dropped. Especially, the economic status of parents manifested as learning gaps among students. As teachers’ care decreased, students’ motivation declined, and disappointment and disillusionment with classes became severe. In school life, hallways were as important as classrooms, and communication during breaks was as important as lessons. When experiences that encourage sharing hearts and lives are not fostered, better education is impossible.

In 1909, British writer E. M. Forster showed a terrifying daily life that the digital future might bring in his short story The Machine Stops. People live alone in honeycomb-shaped rooms, satisfying their needs for food, conversation, and lectures with the push of a button. The author warns of the potential dangers of such a life. "Machines advance. But not in a direction for humans."

Digital technologies that provide innovative experiences like Vision Pro will continue to emerge. However, no matter how amazing the technology, it will never diminish the importance of experiences that make us human, such as friendship, love, care, and nurturing. A good life is impossible when digital replaces analog rather than complementing it. This is the core lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sax says, "Analog must come before digital. The future I want to live in is one that prioritizes human desires, longings, and experiences."

Jang Eun-su, Publishing Culture Critic

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.