Humanity is Resilient

It wasn’t that long ago when everyone still had landlines at home. Some still do, of course, but we can safely say that with the accessibility and convenience of mobile phones, landlines are pretty much obsolete.

I remember when I first moved to my flat, I had to set up the internet, and with it, they gave me a landline number. Even at gunpoint, I wouldn’t for the life of me remember that number. I mean, I came across some online applications a few years ago where the landline number field was mandatory, and I laughed. Of course, I put in my mobile number.

The very first iPhone was the first of what we now consider a modern smartphone. It came out in 2007, and since then, things simply escalated to insane heights. Even after the launch of the iPhone, for a brief time, phones were devices that we primarily used for calling and texting, and occasionally playing games and watching some YouTube videos. It took some time for the modern smartphone to slither its way into almost every aspect of our lives.

Over time, the smartphone became a hub for everything: online banking, online shopping, making payments, taking photos and videos of our loved ones, saving these photos and videos, connecting with other people, security, and much more. Technology in general provided replacements for so many things that were integral to society. Bookstores began to fade— Amazon practically demolished brick-and-mortar bookstores when they started selling books online, and then stepped further and created their Kindle app. Now we have full libraries available right in our pocket

I recently got a notification from Facebook telling me that someone was trying to log in to my account. I quickly changed the password. Then Facebook suggested using two-factor authentication to secure my account. I went ahead and set it up since I already use it for most other accounts I have. Now I rely on my smartphone to get an authentication code when I need it for logging in to certain accounts. Yes, it is convenient and secure, but what would happen if I lost my phone?

Whether we like it or not, we all have a digital identity that we need in order to interact with the world, and nowadays, smartphones are inseparable from our digital identity.

Now let’s imagine if smartphones suddenly disappeared. Nothing else changes; smartphones are simply no more.

Some might think there would be chaos, and sadly, yes, that would be the case initially. As I mentioned previously, smartphones became essential tools for online banking and online shopping, and these particular features changed lifestyles in a fundamental way: people no longer needed to go outside to buy things, and they didn’t need to visit a bank branch to make transfers. Now that mobile phones are no longer around, people’s daily routines and commercial habits would definitely have to adapt quickly.

One of the most obvious outcomes in this scenario is that social media would disappear. This is a plus in my book, and I’m sure many would agree. Would people start socialising in real life because they lost their phones, or would they simply migrate to using computers? I think the optimistic view most would have is that people will break out of their digital prisons and interact with the world again, but I’m not sure if that is a safe assumption. I think, at the very least, the use of social media will reduce massively since the convenience of browsing social media on smartphones was the main factor making people waste so much time on it. A safer assumption, in my opinion, is that because of the immobile nature of computers, people would not tolerate spending so much time sitting in one place to use social media, so they’ll only do it for the important stuff, like the initial purpose of social media: keeping in touch with friends and family… hopefully.

I honestly don’t think losing smartphones will have a massive impact on society because, as I demonstrated earlier, smartphones are a relatively new invention. Yes, they have a hold on a lot of aspects of our lives, but we as a society still haven’t forgotten how things were before smartphones, and we can go back to that and readjust after a few months (maybe years).

I have published a similar speculative piece here on Vocal almost a decade ago (sheesh! and I still consider myself still young-ish). This one is about how I think humanity would behave if an apocalypse hit us. its slightly similar to this, so I thought it might be an interesting one to read if you liked this one.