How will evolving human psychology affect the way we rebuild our physical and digital habitats?
Can we reboot 2020? I think we all want to find the plug on the back of this world, unplug it, wait 10 seconds, plug it back in, and see what emerges on the other side — which can only be better than the completely dystopian hellscape we live in these days. We are only a few months into 2020 and it looks like a decade worth of history has already been written.
The concept of rebooting comes from the world of computers. Now, most people know that a full reboot takes longer than a computer waking up from sleep mode. And with the global shutdown due to the Coronavirus, it looks like a full reboot is necessary. Heck, we may even need to rebuild the entire machine and install a new operating system from scratch, because this virus — which is not just a computer virus, but a real biological virus — has caused real havoc on this machine that is human society.
When you boot up a computer, its hardware and software go through a bootstrapping process. Each layer of the computer architecture starts up, enabling the next layer to leverage the capabilities and services of the previous layer. This process connects the hardware and the operating system to graphical user interfaces, various programs, and ultimately to the network experiences we rely on, especially in this time of global physical isolation.
Obviously, the world is not a computer. There are very few people who believe that the rebooting of the world’s economy will follow a strict and predictable script, like restoring your Mac to its factory settings and rebooting it as a new machine. The world is inhabited by humans. Humans participate in institutions. Most importantly, humans have emotions. This means that individual as well as group psychology will shape the way this new machine reboots. I think it is worth looking at this bootstrapping process, layer by layer, through this lens of human psychology.
The model describing the hierarchy of human needs presents this stack of layers:
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Much like the layers of a computer system, physiological needs form the basis — food, water, shelter. Once these basic needs are met, the need for safety and security builds on top of that bottom layer. On top of that, people look for social connections. They strive for personal accomplishments and prestige, with the ultimate goal of achieving their full potential.
Using this stack as a lens, we can analyse the impact of the globally shared experience we are currently going through, surmising what comes after — what will have changed significantly and what is likely to stay the same in each of these layers. Of course, nobody knows what is going to happen. There are too many dimensions around epidemiology, macroeconomics, and geopolitical shenanigans to predict accurately what will come out on the other side. However, I will highlight what I believe to be the key factors that will make the rebooted version of our world significantly different from everything the 2019 trendline has suggested.
Layer 1: Physiological needs
The bottom layer of the pyramid of human needs includes the things you need in order to survive. Authorities call these the “essentials”. To most people, that means all the products that are available at grocery stores and drug stores, plus whatever Amazon is still shipping. While “COVID” will probably be the Merriam Webster word of the year, I think that the runner-up may be the word “essential” — as people try to figure out if everything they do is essential, if the products they buy are essential, and if their job is essential.
We have come out of a decade defined by influencers selling aspirational lifestyles with instant experiences. We want our pop-ups to be Instagram-worthy, our coffee to be third-wave, our avocado toast to be artisanal. It is very clear that none of those things are essential. If you are reading this at home and not working 18-hour shifts, neither is your job.
With most of the world being shut down, it is actually quite amazing to see the store shelves stocked as well as they are. I’m sure there is stress on the supply chains and that certain goods are in higher demand than others; but by and large, the things that fulfill our physiological needs are mostly available.
In this phase of physical isolation, though, I think that the digital world has become essential too. Imagine COVID-19 without Internet access. What if you were not able to get updates from Twitter or other news websites? What if there were no way to catch up with co-workers, teachers, family, and friends via Zoom or FaceTime? What if there were no way to work remotely, communicating via Slack, collaborating via Google Docs, and building software via code sharing platforms like GitHub?
I think this trend of going back to the essentials will continue to drive the market after the global reboot; from what consumers will adopt to what people will create and offer to the market. The fluffy promise of innovation makes way for general solutions that solve common problems. In the spirit of Food Network host Alton Brown, there is no place for “unitaskers” that only serve a single purpose — because a lemon-peeling gadget will never be as flexible as a good paring knife. Differentiation that highlights one product’s unique attributes will make way for the flexibility of products that assimilate functions of many previous niche solutions; those will become part of people’s dependable daily routine.
Research shows that it takes between 18 and 254 days for people to form a new habit. In the instant-gratification era, you could tap a button on your phone to get something delivered immediately; or you could head down to an Apple store to pick up something on your way to work. People’s habits were all about immediate gratification. But now, we are in a period that forces people to learn how to wait — wait until quarantine is over, until schools reopen, until toilet paper is back in stock, and until the stimulus check arrives. More than anything else, people are forming the habit of waiting. They wait for the next iPhone upgrade; they delay a trip until some indefinite point in the future; and they defer a new purchase because they realize that they are actually pretty happy with what they have.
This mindset will have a big impact on the speed of economic recovery. It changes the basic assumption of economic growth and, more immediately, the efficacy of advertising and marketing. The products and services that dominate the next era will be shaped by a combination of 1) the return to essentials and 2) the willingness to wait for the right thing. Long-term solutions will be much more popular than short-term-oriented products.
Layer 2: Safety needs
Right now, people are keenly aware of two types of insecurity. One is physical insecurity, as they are afraid of getting the virus and becoming very sick. The other one is economic insecurity, as they are worried about losing their jobs and source of income or the value of their investments, such as their retirement funds.
The sharing economy embodies both types of insecurity in its architecture, as physical insecurity breeds economic insecurity. It is becoming painfully clear that companies like WeWork — which packs a lot of people into a small space — are going to be hard-pressed to find customers who want to return to that level of physical proximity, even after the virus subsides. The thought of being crammed into small glass boxes feels fundamentally unsafe now. Similarly, Airbnb hosts are losing their minds over the evaporation of bookings, which they considered a reliable source of income. They are now turning their short-term rentals into furnished long-term rentals for the regular leasing market; the prospect of an empty apartment they need to pay a mortgage for, without getting revenue out of it, is too much economic insecurity for them to bear. Even affordable luxuries like Uber or UberPool seem like a terrible bargain for the person driving the car, as well as for the one person or (god forbid) two people who need to jump into the car together.
Is it really worth it? The electric-scooter company Bird has laid off a big part of its staff by infamously firing people via a pre-recorded message on Zoom. After all, as a customer, you have to wonder whether it makes sense to pick up an electric scooter, if you don’t have the opportunity to wash your hands afterwards. Even the darling of the gig economy, Instacart, is facing a strike; their delivery drivers have started to see their work as deserving of hazard pay, as they have to deliver life-sustaining groceries to homebound and self-isolating COVID sufferers. They should be paid like EMS (emergency medical services) workers in the current situation. So, how much longer are they willing to do this type of work, given the health risks that come with the job? And if these gig workers actually started getting paid the true value of their work, could such platforms — many of which already have to deal with astronomical losses — remain a viable business model at all? Are we witnessing the end of the sharing economy? And what is going to replace it after the reboot?
The companies I just mentioned were considered the tech industry darlings of the 2010s, with sky-high valuations, mountains of venture capital, and (for a lucky few) the chance of a splashy stock market launch. But especially now, it seems like the model of funding an aspiring monopoly with globs of VC money creates a difficult situation, where the organization in question bears the burden of satisfying both sides of the market. For example, Airbnb has to please the travellers who want to cancel their bookings and receive a refund on the one hand, and the hosts who want to keep their deposits and pay their mortgages on the other hand. For the platform, there is no win. You can’t please both sides. And everybody ends up blaming you.
The sharing economy exposes buyers to physical risks and sellers to economic risks.
We can be hopeful that scientists will find a treatment and create a vaccine for COVID-19. Slowly, travel and hospitality will awake from their dormant state. But people’s expectations of tech platforms will be informed by the downside of the utopian ideal. What emerges will likely be a realignment of responsibility, where two people, who want to make a deal economically, find a mutually agreeable arrangement that matches their individual needs. Instead of one global, homogenous marketplace that is controlled by one website, we will see more diverse offerings that are connected and enabled by the efficiency software brings. You make the deal as individuals. And the software is not your boss — it’s just a tool you use for coordination and communication.
Layer 3: Social needs
Today, people in isolation are lucky to have the infrastructure of the Internet, social networks, and messaging platforms to connect with friends and family. Back in 1918, people who were isolated due to the Spanish flu only had a book or two to keep them entertained.
Yet, it is interesting to realize that, outside of Facebook friends and family group chats, the social structures in people’s lives are typically defined by physical spaces and their proximity to each other. For example, people say, “I am from New York.” Or they refer to a specific neighborhood, saying, “I live in Mission in San Francisco.” It is just a zip code or a neighborhood name, but it implies what they stand for and who they are. Someone who lives in Beverly Hills has a totally different social structure than someone who lives in Bushwick. So much of where people choose to live is about choosing the group to which they belong. This begs the question: When people leave their chosen identity cluster, e.g. Williamsburg, and go back to their hometown, e.g. Lexington, Kentucky, for several months, will their perceived identity change? Furthermore, if culture and identity are defined by street scenes that are in turn shaped by small businesses, many of which are forced to close their doors during this crisis, is there even anything left for the residents to return to afterwards? And if the residents don’t return, how is the idea of the collective defined then? Can geographically defined group identity survive a mass exodus and economic collapse?
Universities are facing a similar situation. When people hear that Harvard and (minutes later) Ohio State has decided to move everything online, they leave the campus. Then, they realize how different online instruction will be. But why is that? Is it because most of what defines a course is the setting, the affiliation, the daily plan, and the incidental interaction between people who have chosen the same major as their collective identity?
Even people who belong to organized religions may not be able to worship together anymore. Now, this aspect of social life may return to normal faster than others, because there are forces beyond logistics and economics to pull people back to their routine and rituals — be it cultural heritage, family pressure, personal needs, or social dynamics. Nevertheless, collective identity defined by religion will be facing a challenging period ahead.
The work situation is no different. What happens if the company you work for enacts restructuring and layoffs, shifting the in-office experience to a predominantly remote, work-from-home situation? Will people’s social needs in these existing collectives be sufficiently fulfilled as they go through physical separation? Will their interactions with co-workers be adequately replaced with remote-work technologies?
The sense of belongingness and group identity shifts from physically defined spaces to digitally defined spaces.
What if new types of clusters form? Clusters that are not defined by physical space and distance, such as being on the same campus or in the same neighborhood, going to the same place of worship, not to mention going to the same country club or meetup? Is there room for these new clusters of commonality to form, as people are dispersed and yearning to connect? What new type of social structure would emerge out of this that we haven’t seen before?
Layer 4: Esteem needs
People derive a lot of self-esteem from the company they keep and the memberships they hold — whether it is about the university they went to, the fancy neighborhood they live in, the prestigious employer they work for, or the number of followers they have on a social media platform. Now, in the current period of isolation, a lot of those things are becoming much less meaningful, as we are simply trying to get the last roll of toilet paper and go about our day, regardless of hierarchy. But as human beings, we always want to feel like we are achieving something, like we are improving, like we are becoming more confident in ourselves and more accomplished.
Self-esteem is not going to be defined by consumption, but by creation.
So, where does this surplus of the need to be better than others go? Is there going to be a massive self-learning process, as people aim to come out of this crisis better than before, by learning new skills that they now have time to learn?
Interestingly, there has been an increase in keyword searches for developer jobs since the crisis started. This suggests that more and more people are starting to think of acquiring developers’ skill sets. While these skill sets are difficult to achieve, they are rewarding; once you have attained them, you have the satisfaction of not only being a maker, but getting paid very well for your work. These days, when someone asks you, “Do you know how to code?”, you want to be able to say “yes”, because that just seems so much better than saying, “I went to an Ivy League university.”
This is a period in which many people have a lot of free time. And soon thereafter, there will be dire economic pressure. Thus, every individual needs to try to come out of this crisis stronger than before. So — beyond the world of software — what are the skill sets and achievements people strive for at the moment?
Let’s take the field of education. The most significant revolution in the field is probably not the fact that universities and grade schools are going online. It is the recognition that the most engaging on-screen teachers are actually YouTube stars, not students’ university professors who give lessons over Zoom calls. The prevalent form of instruction is shifting towards students teaching students, amateurs teaching amateurs. People who make instructional YouTube videos aren’t really seeking fancy university degrees as their ultimate achievement; they are observing the sea change and leveling themselves up by becoming mentors others can learn from, even if this type of instruction is very informal. Since they are both makers, who create great videos, and teachers others want to learn from, it is likely that those people will not only be Internet-famous; they will actually become real stars and leaders, movers and shakers, unencumbered by physical space and restrictions of existing institutions.
More likely than not, a person’s esteem in this era will not be defined by consumption; it won’t be about what you buy, what you wear, or what you have. Someone with great esteem will be someone who is able to make, create, and teach. This means that, possibly, the best way to practice what you learn is not completing homework and assignments you get graded on, but creating something on your own that you can add to the collective. You can contribute to the toolsets and the shared portfolio that different people make online, whether it is based on open-source software, 3D design, or other types of media.
Layer 5: Self-actualization
Let’s be honest: Nobody knows what self-actualization really means.
In the digital world, there are people who have achieved the pinnacle of being the best Minecraft player or the most creative TikTok creator. In the analogue world, it is quite easy to tell who has made it; not because of their wealth, but because you can tell from a mile away. Yet, those two worlds have always been very different; people who are successful in the real world don’t usually respect the achievements of people in the digital world.
Now, this period of social isolation has placed all of us in the digital world. The real world has been abandoned. In trying to flatten the curve to manage the spread of the virus, we sent everyone home. But when everyone is home, the traditional seats of power atop the impressive physical structure of cities, buildings, and stages, dissipate. All the monuments of institutional power are empty. And all that’s left of signals of wealth on high-income streets will be empty storefronts with a “space available” sign. By flattening the curve of the virus’s spread in the physical world, we may be flattening the power hierarchy as well.
It is inevitable that the economy shifts. While e-commerce used to be a small component, representing only 11% of the global retail pie, it will probably rise to 80% of a much smaller pie by the end of this isolation period, because of the general shrinkage of what people buy and what people can buy. This intense growth of the online component versus the in-person component is unlikely to drop back to the trend line of gradual growth after the crisis is over. By then, e-commerce will be commerce. E-learning will be learning. Online communities will be communities. Digital government will be government.
Doing things online is now the default way — which does not mean that online spaces are nearly good enough to replace the real world.
This prediction makes it clear that the current set of tools for building online experiences is woefully inadequate. Virtual conferences, which are being held using duct-taped-together technology, may not be very good today; but they can be 10 times better in a year, and 100 times better in two years. That is the premise of software eating the world, and that is
Moore’s law still in effect.
People have the structure, possibility, and space to become the best version of themselves. They can connect with things that define them and which they can help define. They can achieve meaningful connections that define the collective identity and actions. (This type of socially oriented space is what I am working on in my day job, building Cardstack.) Ultimately, they will be able to decide where the combination of the online world and the real world, which we physically live in, is going to evolve in the course of the next 10 years.
The technical tools and software that will power these new interactions have not yet been defined. But people will start complaining about every tool that is being used in isolation, including current darlings like Slack, Zoom, and Twitter for communication and news. When the masses — not just early adopters and cool digital natives — attempt to communicate through these software channels, it results in massive needs and demands. This can concern the dollars they are willing to spend for something better or complaints as they get frustrated with limitations.
People want to connect; they want to organize, they want to achieve, and ultimately, they want to self-actualize. The way they spend their money, their time, and their energy to learn — that is the real force that will shape the new society we will see emerge out of all this. The mass psychology change I have outlined here will lead to a different outcome than the one the government predicts; after all, this collective global experience that affects all age groups and ethnicities will change the human beings that live through it on a fundamental level.
I believe this force of will, coming from people who return from isolation, will be the main force shaping cities and non-cities as well as the digital domain and Internet space. It is very unlikely that all these people will come back passively consuming media, indulging in consumer products, and deriving their identities from locality-based affiliations the way they did in the past.
Now, those who can build platforms that facilitate online and offline interactions are not the urban planners of the next phase; they are more like hardware store providers, who give people the tools they need, so they can build the space they see and feel when they come back. These people are not users of a few top apps in the app store; they are builders of the new social structure, the new economic relationships, and the new means of production — just like this Coronavirus outbreak is a bottom-up biological phenomenon, not a geopolitical dictating power move.
Ultimately, the recovery will be determined by the people and their actions, as well as the variations and the complexity of physical space. We have seen a peak in urbanisation in the last 10 years, which may now turn into a trend of people moving away from the urban centers, so as to explore a remote lifestyle — not only in terms of work, but in terms of geography as well, as they both work remotely and consider living in the countryside.
When people build their physical and online lives after this crisis, they will need the digital space to offer great variety as well. The templates provided to us within the boxes of our phones and browsers, to enter text and images, will not be enough to capture the full hierarchy of needs, which people will express through the digital medium. In the theory of adoption, the late majority has arrived at this digital transformation. Everybody on earth either is or has to be a digital participant.
But the real world is in peril. The governments, laws, and regulations are stretched to their limits as this crisis plays out. How many more levers can the politicians and civil servants use? They can shut down, they can redirect, but they will have to cultivate this new online-offline combination. This combination is better for the livelihood of the people, allowing us to organize and build a world collectively — one that we can be happy in, where we can achieve our hierarchy of needs, while still ensuring that we have a comfortable physical world to enjoy.
Those who understand technology, design, human psychology, even politics and ethics, need to come together to create a new toolbox. We need to let people, as they come back from this period of isolation, learn those tools. And then, they can decide for themselves which combination of digital tools they would like to use to reconstruct their space — both physical and online, personal and shared, private and public. This will redefine the way their own personal world manifests itself and the way they interact with the people in their lives.
I don’t think there is a single individual — not Jeff Bezos, not Mark Zuckerberg, not Elon Musk, not Bill Gates — who knows what this world will look like. How do you build a platform that evolves to fit the human needs, versus dictating what they can do? How do you design a product that emerges from the people’s collective creativity as they use it, versus being restricted by a company’s product roadmap or terms of service? Ultimately, how do we ensure that the people who help share, create, and evolve this space — as it is built on top of their sensibility, expertise, and collective will — receive economic benefits, since they are the people who made it all possible? That is our challenge as a society that is seeing this sudden juxtaposition of the physical world and the online world. Everything is possible. Nothing is easy. But a big wave is coming for people to ride.
Conclusion
Many of the systems and institutions we count on have failed us in various ways. And that’s what got us here. Of course, no one pillar of society is to blame exclusively. National governments, international bodies, tech platforms, financial institutions, and big corporations (including airlines) — they all need to do a lot of soul searching to realize what they did wrong.
In any case, the rebooting of society will not return us to the arrangement we had in the last days of 2019, with power and wealth lying where they were. The trillion-dollar stimulus may transfer one-time wealth from one ledger to the other; but ultimately, each layer will find its new mechanism and align it with the new psychology.
The shutdowns have made it clear that the 2010 era of the consumer culture has come to an end. So much of what was sold to consumers in the past has proven to be unessential. So much time has been professionally planned by us, so we can waste it all as efficiently as possible. Now that we have become time billionaires, it is clear that there is not much more to do. The most poignant tweet on this is probably the kind saying,
“I finished Netflix.”I believe that, as a consequence of this reboot, we are going to move from a consumptive world to a constructive world. People finally recognize the empty promises of the consumer economy. They are starting to see the potential of learning, making, organizing — working together cooperatively to solve problems. People are going to find meaning through this reboot, which they are not going to give up once the mechanism of the economy has been restarted.
In the words of the famous “Broke, Woke, Bespoke” memes: The anchoring of humanity in the real world — the government buildings as well as other physical monuments like cathedrals, stadiums, and giant shopping malls — is broke. Meanwhile, we are woke to the limits of the platform economy; the Ubers and Airbnbs of the world, with all their power, are not able to fill the gaps that are left behind by the broken institutions. What is bespoke is that now, we have to work together to organize our own human structure, one tweet storm at a time, one Slack group at a time, and one Zoom meeting at a time. These may not be the only tools we need to build our digital future, but we know that the whole world is getting a taste of what this reboot will feel like. Hold down the power button. We are about to start afresh, whether the world is ready for it or not.
Writer: Chris Tse - Cardstack Co-Founder.
Source:
https://medium.com/cardstack/rebooting-the-world-after-the-covid-19-shutdown-3c53c989e499
