So Funny How We Dont Talk Anymore
It's Christmas, and you'll all have probably witnessed the traffic, parking problems and decorated stores that are always connected with the festive period. Many of us, for many very valid reasons, take decided to shift a lot of this shopping online. It's uncomplicated, it's quick and it'due south a lot less hassle.
Nonetheless, on Christmas Eve I went to McDonalds. I don't oft go there, and haven't been into one for about 6 months. However, this particular one has had a facelift and they've got all the latest kit within. Y'all'll walk in and, mounted on poles across the back of the "restaurant" are vertical monitors. You merely tap the screen and cull the food you want, and so tap your magical contactless card (or slot it in) and a picayune number gets printed on some paper. Y'all then go and stand in front end of the serving area, holding your bit of newspaper. You expect upwardly and watch a monitor with order numbers flashing up.
I've seen this a couple of years ago in Spain and yes, it'south clever, but I looked around and suddenly began seeing information technology all very differently.
The McDonalds counter was separate into ii parts – the largest function was this "collection expanse" where you lot wait and collect your food. The other, smaller, section had two members of staff set up to accept orders from people who desire to really practise things "manually".
What got me was the fact that the queues were forming effectually the carte screens, but nobody was actually walking upward to the two members of staff waiting to collect orders the "old fashioned manner". People were coming in, pressing the screen, tapping their cards, then shuffling across with their special numbered newspaper and grabbing their food without then much as a "hello" or a "give thanks yous".
Why were people doing this? Perhaps it'southward a generational thing. A lot of the people in McDonald's that nighttime were younger and they're probably more used to tablets and gadgets, so information technology all seemed quite simple and familiar. In your local supermarket, y'all'll probably notice that the older generation prefer to use the traditional checkout rather than those self-checkout things. Information technology'due south partially considering the technology might seem daunting, but partially because they actually like talking to people.
I started thinking even more virtually all this because, after leaving McDonald's, I went to the petrol station and used the "Pay At The Pump" system. I pulled up, popped my bill of fare in, then waited a couple of minutes while the slowest processor in the world decides whether it'll refresh the screen. Then I headed into Tesco, used the cocky-checkouts and popped across to Argos to pick up an club that I'd placed through their "Click and Collect" system.
It was only when I'd got domicile that I fully realised that I'd simply said "Thank you" and cypher else. No interaction. No chat. No assistance or advice. I'd visited a restaurant, a couple of shops and a petrol station and not properly spoken to anyone. I fifty-fifty drove habitation and used the M6 Toll, which used to take people in the local toll booths, to find that they're no longer staffed locally – painfully apparent when a commuter in front had trouble with the automated money collector and ended up talking into a speaker and waving at a camera in the gantry. Drivers generally period through, tapping their cards or using the tag system to reduce the demand to end and really encounter some other man.
At domicile, when you pick up your tablet or smartphone, you are physically and mentally making the decision to remove yourself. You're ordering online because you want the convenience, your don't have the time or you want to perhaps relieve a bit of greenbacks. Withal, fifty-fifty when nosotros do physically drag ourselves out to the shops we're interacting more than with machines and screens, non people.
Perhaps, to some, my vision of the future might seem a piddling far-fetched, but I really don't remember we're far from a world where really interacting with others is required whatever more. We can conversation with friends via Facebook, we tin can fall in love online through dating websites, we can play the all-time mobile casino apps, we can shop, pay, get help, find answers and solve problems using a mobile device or a automobile. At that place is already no need to talk to people for the most office, and it's something fifty-fifty kids are realising. Nosotros don't use our phones for talking to people. How often do you lot use your phone for, y'know, phoning people?
Here I am, trying to be a good father and trying to encourage my son to speak to new people and to be polite, but already many of his peers have started playing on an Xbox or an iPad and communicating through an online globe of actor handles, social media and games. Is at that place actually a bespeak when nosotros're getting greenbacks out of a machine, tweeting our complaints and ownership via apps and bear on-screens?
I wait at myself besides. In this past yr I've tried calling a complaints line when I had issues with a dishwasher repair. I was kept on hold or in a queue and passed around several people. I wasted hours and hours, and then chose instead to utilise Twitter and email to mutter because it took less of my time and resulted in a more constructive response.
At the moment I can "click and collect" from most major supermarkets and department stores. Even pharmacies. These all probably offer home delivery as well, simply even when you do make the attempt to really get exterior to the shops, you actually don't need to speak to anyone. Sports Direct, Debenhams, Tesco, BHS, Asda, Matalan – fifty-fifty Goldsmiths (a jewellery store) and The Fragrance Shop! So fifty-fifty if your wife thought you'd spent hours choosing the all-time necklace and perfume, the truth is that you simply clicked your mouse a few times and then showed the email on your telephone to the person behind the counter. You probably just said, "Thanks" and no more. Some just take lockers in a auto-park, so y'all don't fifty-fifty need to do that.
Moving frontward, I really can't encounter things getting whatever better. Yes, there's still people who go to the local butchers and accept a friendly conversation. There'll still exist people who choose to get to the post office to get a packet delivered instead of printing a delivery note and handing it to a courier. However, let's circle back to my trip to McDonalds. With self-driving cars only effectually the corner, I really don't think information technology'll be too far into the future before those burgers are being made by robots. They'd roll off a motorcar like something out of Chitty Chitty Blindside Blindside – with peradventure one or two people just loading them up. Already we've got machines serving drinks in pubs, so we can't exist too far abroad from machines delivering us the food we've ordered.
I think it's pretty scary. Technology is getting more and more advanced. We're getting to a stage where nosotros don't accept to go outside at all – we can society our weekly shop, all our gifts, our evening meal and our clothes from our tablets or phones. Then, even if we practise become exterior to eat or shop, the people we interact with are slowly getting replaced with touch-screens and collection points. Nosotros have delivery systems, automated dispensers, self-serve checkouts at supermarkets and the liberty to not talk to anyone.
So when kids grow upwards, if they choose to, they tin be even more uncommunicative. They tin can interact with screens and have everything provided to them. Even when they go to work, they'll probably be dealing with devices and computers more than people.
Imagine it. Your cocky-driving car takes you to McDonald's and y'all cull your food from a screen or through vox recognition (no need for someone responding via a headset). You lean out and tap to pay, and so some robotic arm kicks into action to prepare your meal before it'south slid through your window without you having to bother moving or discussing anything with another man existence.
I feel similar Wall-Eastward in the spaceship. Are we all destined to turn out like this?
https://www.youtube.com/sentry?5=GvMvvjPCtyw
Source: https://www.coolsmartphone.com/2015/12/26/dont-talk-any-more/
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