Life and Technology After COVID-19
When the pandemic has settled, and life starts to go back to a resemblance of normalcy, what will that look like? Will things ever be completely the same again? Though the world is eagerly awaiting each city’s apex and decline of the virus, how long will this last and what will be the long-term effects on society?
The world has been forced into isolation. With that, we have seen the rise of remote workers, video conferencing, and video education. Though none of this was chosen by us, are there good parts of this way of life that will stay when this is done?
Already regulations are falling to allow us to utilize technology in our new remote world. According to Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief of Reason magazine, HIPAA is now permiting more medical providers to use technology such as Skype, Facetime and email.
COVID has forced us, and will continue to force us, to innovate technology to adapt to isolation. To improve remote work, communication, and education technology. We will also adapt and become more comfortable with using it.
There are many upsides of remote work technology. For those that don’t have to come into an office, there is less cost of housing the employee in the office and the employee can have the freedom of being home. When we come out the other side of this, with even better technology to manage remote workers, maybe the world of remote employees continue? I’m not saying that all employees will stay remote as they are now, of course, but maybe there will be more remote workers than before. How will this affect team dynamics and productivity?
When I think of a team. I think of a cohesive unit. I think of a group of people who can communicate, brainstorm, work on projects together, support one another, and work well together. How does that look in a more remote world? Can a team ever communicate as effectively remotely than in-person? My guess is no, but if the world becomes more remote after COVID, how will technology adapt to improve our communication? How will we adapt to that technology. Communication technology will have to be improved to make the team dynamic more fluid and efficient. Zoom often cuts out, people are talking over one another, and background noise can change the whole conversation. Without any improvements, Zoom doesn’t seem to be a sufficient answer to our remote needs. If that’s the case, it definitely won’t be the answer to needs after COVID. How will Zoom improve their product? Will another competitor take their market share? If teams will become more remote after COVID than before, technology will need to make communication and working together much more effective.
Will education change? One prediction is the presence of VR in education. Elizabeth Bradley, president of Vassar College and a scholar of global health, foresees VR being a part of education after COVID. To what degree? That seems to early to answer. Outside of VR, technology is enabling us to conduct online lectures, exams, and group study meetings. This is being done at the highschool, college, and graduate school level. Will online lectures continue to the degree it is now? My guess is no. Online lectures pale in comparison to in-person lectures in my opinion. Thus, even though our technology will improve, I don’t foresee it being better than in person. The better question is, will remote technology improve enough that online schools become a better value? Coursera, for example, provides online degrees from schools around the world. There are many schools in addition that provide online MBAs and other degrees. Though these programs are often discounted relative to their in-person counterparts, I don’t believe the value has always been there. As noted, remote educational technology will improve during COVID. There’s a real need and thousands of developers and companies working to be the best option on the market. When all is said and done, remote education will be better than it was before COVID. Will Coursera and other institution’s online degrees become better values? My prediction is yes. Not only will our technology improve, but our mindset around online learning will as well. We will become more used to this style of learning and teachers will become more comfortable with teaching in this style. All of these factors suggest that the education will be even better than it was before COVID.
When it comes to our mindset of working from home, I think we will become more comfortable with this as well. For me, I’ve had to adapt quickly. I’ve had to make a comfortable work station that allows me to sit and work from home for hours a day. DELL has sold out of their monitors and monitor-arms because they have been in such high demand for remote workers. People are spending a significant amount of money to make their homes into sufficient offices. When COVID has settled (whenever that is), these at-home offices will remain. People will feel more comfortable staying at home now that they have their setups.
Companies will have to adapt to managing their employees remotely. How will technology adapt to this? Zoom is great, but it doesn’t run all day. How can managers know what their employees are doing? How can they prevent them from binging netflix all day instead of doing their job? Is that necessary at all? To my understanding, technology hasn’t improved enough for managers managing remote employees. This will happen during COVID. It will be necessary to make a fluid, cohesive workplace remotely and once this is done, why not continue it for those who don’t really have to be in the office?
The infrastructure for remote workers will have been created due to COVID. The question is will we continue to use it afterwards?
