The Tug of War between Ongoing Digitization and Digital Detox
The digital revolution has changed the world in unimaginable ways—from how we communicate, travel, and shop to how we lead our daily lives. An innovation is considered truly successful if we cannot imagine a life without it, and the world of digitization is a testimony to this statement.
We may think digitization has matured fairly well, but studies and reports show why we are still in the nascent stages. For example, with all of the possibilities with online shopping, online retail numbers are still just a meager 5 percent compared to overall retail industry turnover. Even the FCC, which regulates communication projects, is said to be lagging behind on digitization.
The digitization potential is huge, and big data and wearable computing are expected to take the revolution to new heights in the coming decade. Although there is excitement about what is coming in digitization, the debate about whether digitization is good or bad continues. We understand there are some harmful effects of too much digitization, but digitization itself is inevitable.
This is where the whole idea of digital detox comes in. Digital detox is a term we have been hearing a lot lately, including being promoted by leading media people, such as Katie Couric. Digital detox is the idea of disconnecting yourself from the digital world with the goal of living in the current moment and enjoying what is around you, which creates more physical social interactions.
Interesting articles are out there to help self-diagnose if you're in the throes of digitization, and ironically, there are even apps that help with digital detox. In an ongoing attempt to promote digital detox, Arianna Huffington has written Thrive, a book that is based on her own experience and learnings from the media world. At the annual CEO summit hosted by Microsoft, Huffington brought digital detox to the table, forcing industry leaders to look at developing technology that will help users with digital detox—a paradox where more technology is required to bring in a disconnection with technology.
One sure thing is that the digitization wave will not—and cannot—stop. So it's in the best interest of users to create a balance in this tug of war and arrive at what works best for them. The first step toward that balance is to understand that we live in a world of ongoing digitization and that periodic detox will help us create a balanced life.
