Some thoughts on the impact on personal and family life of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The text below is the introduction to an article written by Jonathan Ebsworth as a contribution to a short book published in 2021

Title: The 4th Industrial Revolution from an Ethical Perspective

Category: Sallux publications
ISBN: 978-94-92697-20-2
Subtitle: By Timo Plutschinski (editor)

You can download the article by clicking on the image to the left of this text, or on the button at the foot of the introduction.

The rise of technology in our daily lives

In the 1990s, we saw the rise of the internet and more particularly the world-wide web – which began as a somewhat academic endeavour, then started to transform first business to business commerce closely followed by online shopping.

Around 2000, smartphones became widespread; their popularity boosted massively when Apple launched the fashionable, user-friendly iPhone in 2007. Suddenly we had an attractive consumer device that was (almost) always connected, always on, in ourpockets or our hands wherever we went. Significant improvements in mobile communications (3G, 4G and soon 5G) and high-speed Wi-Fi networks added further momentum.

It was not only new shiny hardware and better communications protocols that changed things – but new software offered entirely new possibilities. User-friendly search engines helped democratize access to the incredible range of information on the internet. These were often coupled with content portals like AOL, CompuServe and Yahoo. Napster and iTunes music store began to challenge the traditionalphysical media for music of singles, LPs, CDs and of course the compact cassette. YouTube was founded in 2005 and began to provideaccess to a massive range of visual content.

Internet-based social media appeared around the year 2000, and quickly gained very large numbers of users. Friends Reunited (1999) and Myspace (2005) were some of the early successes. The arrival of Facebook on the scene in 2004 quickly took user-growth into uncharted waters. Helped by the growth of fashionable iPhones and its derivatives, Facebook achieved 500m users during 2010. By 2018 Facebook had over 2.3bn users out of 4.2bn internet users in a global population of 7.6bn people.

Many social media start-ups come and go; but today we live in a world where Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp (Facebook companies), YouTube, Waze, (all owned by Alphabet – Google’s parent company), Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok and for business people LinkedIn dominate our lives. These are augmented by Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix, Amazon Prime and our cable TV providers offering more entertainment. Our smart home technology comes primarilyfrom Google Nest, Amazon Ring, Apple Home, Phillips Hue and any number of other smart home device manufacturers. Smart speakers developed by Google, Apple and Amazon (not to mention third parties who include these capabilities in their own products) allow us to ‘talk to our tech’ and increasingly installed in our homes. Cars are increasingly connected both directly and often embedding our phone capabilities via Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. We can add to that level of connection with smart watches or fitness devices.

We can be connected all our waking hours, wherever we are – always reachable, always on (even often when we are sleeping). Our mealtimes, our work time, our times of quiet, our times of worship or devotion (if that is a part of our life) often are accompanied by our devices.

Made for relationship

As human beings, Genesis describes us as being created for connection. Connection with God our Creator, and with one another:

“Yahweh God said, ‘It’s not good for the human being to be on his own. I’ll make him a helper suitable for him.’” (Genesis 2:18)

 [John Goldingay, The Bible for Everyone © 2018 John Goldingay]

All through Scripture we hear the story of a Covenanting God, who has made promise after promise that humankind could have relationship with him, to the point of sending his Son to die in our place. Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane contained these words: 

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21)

(English Standard Version Bible, 2001)

In this article, one of the key questions I want to explore is, “What impact does the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technology have on our relationships – with one another, those we love and with God?”

Technology – a force for good?

Our attitudes to technology innovation to fall into one of three headings: Technophiles are excited by new things, new possibilities. They embrace as much new technology as they can; many people are techno-ambivalent – they remain un- excited by new toolsand technology;

And a final group could be described as technophobic. They may be suspicious or frightened by new technology – but whatever the reason they do not like it.

As a technology professional who has worked in this industry for almost 40 years, I can appreciate all these perspectives. There is some wisdom to be found in each.

I have heard many say that technological artefacts are ‘neutral’; that it is only their application that determines whether they are beneficial or harmful. This view is usually described as Instrumentalism. I think we need to look harder at technology innovations to understand the underlying perspectives and values that are innately reflected within.

Embedded in every tool is an ideological bias, a predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing over another, to amplify one sense of skill or attitude more loudly than another.

[Neil Postman, Technopoly (1993)]

Not all the values and impact of technology are immediately obvious. Look at the de-velopment of the mechanical clocks, which were developed to help regulate times of devotion in monasteries. However, the clock quickly became the means to regulate time and events in people’s lives. The clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours, but of synchronizing the actions of men . . . The clock is a piece of machinery whose ‘product’ is seconds and minutes: by its essential nature it dissociated time from human events andhelped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences.

[Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934)]

To read the whole article, please click on the button below to download.