Categories: Articles

Our Digital Lives

Don’t blame technology. Technology is ambiguous.

Yesterday, I blogged about a new documentary that was being aired on TVO titled, Life After Digital. The documentary depressed me on many levels. Yes, it’s a dystopian view of how bad people seem to be doing terrible things online, while the culture of rubber-necking is pushed further ahead by other bad civilians hiding behind their keyboards and screens egging these terrible things on. It’s sad. In fact, in many instances, it’s tragic (as the documentary displays). It also depressed me, because I don’t believe that this is the right way to portray technology, social media, the Internet… or our society. It would be easy to create a documentary on any city… maybe the city that you live… and highlight everything negative (the murders, rapes, burglaries, poverty, Governmental scandals, injustices, etc…). My guess is that the negative probably accounts for only a small percentage of the entire quality of life that your city provides. To think of the Internet as anything other than a new type of city, community… or whatever would be a mistake. The Internet will have many bad seeds in it… just like any other community (unfortunately).

With all of the bad, there is plenty of good.

Tonight, TVO invited me to take part in a televised panel to discuss Life After Digital, and just how scared we should really be of technology, our data/information and the new culture that we are creating. It was on The Agenda With Steve Paikin and the show was called, Our Digital Lives. Yes, there is – without question – a cost to all of this connectedness that we are all experiencing (especially as it all becomes more and more mobile, and in the palm of our hands). Yes, there is a need for us to create a new value system when it comes to understanding the types of relationships that we now have in both the digital and physical world. Yes, there is going to be a loss of privacy in this new world (especially when we have yet to redefine what we mean when we say "privacy"). Yes, there is a significant price to pay for staying globally connected. I believe that none of this is a zero-sum game. We must be vigilant with all of this technology, and we must also stay positive and do our best to self-educate ourselves about what it means to be putting all of this "stuff" out there for the world to see, share and comment upon.

This is my side.

I had the chance to present my side of the story. It is below. I’m hopeful that you will watch the forty-five minute segment and add your own thoughts about this. Do you think that technology is eating everything – including you and your family – for breakfast, or do you believe that we all have to think very differently about who we want to become in a connected society?

Over to you… Here is Our Digital Lives:

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.