How Digital Can Give Us Purpose

Technology is changing the way we interact with the world. There. I said it. Whether we like it or not, emerging tech is a very real thing on a very real trajectory. It’s all around us. It influences the ways that we think, the things that we do, and even the ways in which we interact with the tangibles that existed long before dial up or the dotcom bubble. Human-centred design is no longer limited to making sure that pull doors have handles or that ketchup doesn’t cascade out of the bottle and ruin your chips. It makes us spend more time in our favourite apps, drives customer loyalty, and influences those all-important purchase decisions.

These are all telling signs that we’re in the midst of a shift into a digital-hybrid lifestyle. The lines between the real world and the digital world are becoming more and more blurred as time goes on. We know from history that technology comes in waves and the time between each wave gets significantly shorter with every major breakthrough. You’ve got more processing power in your pocket than the computers that powered the Apollo space program, your smartphone runs at almost 1000 times the speed of the mid-80s Cray-2 Supercomputer, and the answer to any question is always just a Google (Bing?!) search away. In the grand scheme of things, we’ve ideated, innovated, and developed in an exceptionally small space of time.

For this reason, it’s very easy to get caught up in the ‘future tech’ talks of the metaverse, NFTs, and immortalising ourselves in digital avatar form. But I’m not here to advocate some dystopian Black Mirror reality. I’m here to look at the way that this digital-hybrid lifestyle captures the essence of what it means to be a real person with real thoughts and real feelings. The way that digital adds to the experience of being human rather than takes away from it. The way that things like social media, websites, and apps help us to be better and more purposeful, open and more grounded, supportive and more encouraging.

To understand how digital can add to the experience of being human, we need to understand what it is that makes us human in the first place. We live on a planet made up of many different cultures and attitudes, so what is it that connects all of us together despite our differences?

Well, there are loads of things that tie us together. We have the ability to organise ourselves and work towards common goals, we are incredibly self aware, and we have a natural proclivity towards empathy and compassion. These are all characteristics that have been carefully curated over six million+ years of evolution. That alone serves as a striking contrast. Technology has evolved way faster than we ever can, which immediately suggests some sort of disconnect between us and the digital-first devices, products, and services that we use every day.

We can’t discuss the relationship between people and technology without first addressing the issues that it has caused (and is still causing). Unrealistic beauty standards on social media pave the way for mental health challenges, we are becoming dependent on devices and apps for social interaction, and online echo chambers help damaging attitudes to fester and grow. This is a huge area of digital that cannot be ignored. If the problems are never addressed then the problems can never be fixed. But what about the things that take place online that make us sit up and think “You know what. People are alright”. These are the moments that we need more of. So what are they and how do we make that happen?

For all of its flaws, social media does a really good job at connecting like minded people from all around the world. It helps us to break down geographical borders and share in our collective joy or outrage. It gives groups of people a voice that they most likely didn’t have before, turning small communities into global movements that incite real change. Social media can make our worlds infinitely larger and infinitely smaller at the same time, but the power that comes with collective thought is second to none. Just look at the positive impact that social media has had in raising awareness of things like BLM and LGBTQ rights.

Why is this? Most people in digitally enabled economies live in a democracy, but all too often politicians answer to the will of their high-powered friends and personal interests over the will of the people. This makes it really difficult to make real change happen as an individual. Political decision makers don’t respond very well to the everyday person telling them what to do. They respond to the media pressure that has a direct impact on their approval ratings and chance of reelection. Unified social causes have the power to reach huge numbers of people, including the journalists who can work to bring even greater reach and awareness of the issues that challenge people all around the world.

Some digital platforms are built on the empathy and compassion that makes us human. Things like ‘Just Giving’ helps cause leaders to demonstrate in numbers just how important a movement is and how many people support it. The larger the number of supporters the more pressure this puts on decision makers to write legislation that can kickstart real change.

While big numbers and highly engaged-with petitions help to drive that change at a societal level, one of the most reassuring aspects of social media-led causes is that they don’t have to be widespread in order to have a positive impact on the people who need it. I can only speak from experience here, but a good example of this is the ‘Co-op Foundation’ — the charity arm of the Co-op that runs an annual campaign to raise awareness of youth loneliness (Lonely Not Alone). I was fortunate enough to work on an influencer activation for this campaign and while we looked at all the usual success metrics such as reach and engagement, the real results come out in the comments sections of the posts, where young people were sharing their experiences and highlighting that it’s reassuring to know that other people are going through the same thing.

For me, this experience cemented my view that social (and more broadly, digital) does have the ability to make change. Maybe it’s an optimistic view, but even if just one person feels that they have benefitted from what they see online, we know that there is at least hope for many other people who are going through the same thing. This is what makes digital an incredibly useful tool in re-humanising us. Even through a screen we can communicate in a way that triggers the very human feeling of empathy. This is what we need to see more of and a shift that is definitely starting to happen. The challenge lies in scaling that up in a way that has the biggest impact for the people and communities who need it most.