COVID-19: Is it a catalyst for the world going digital?
The Coronavirus has taken a toll on every single person on the planet. It has also been the reason behind the shift of millions of businesses from old-school face-to-face interaction to everything being done and processed digitally. Take a look around you; everything is online. The real question here is whether the Coronavirus was simply a catalyst instead of a destroyer?
Living in 2020, we all knew that the shift from traditional to digital was inevitable. Slowly but surely, all things are being done online — bank transactions, public transport services, education — you name it. One thing we didn’t know or predict was just how quick the world would become 100% digital.
Online schooling institutions did exist pre-COVID, they just weren’t heard of as much. Now, every single school, university, college, and any other educational institution known to man is functioning digitally. Back in 2018, discussions about schools going online were underway and estimations about the time it would take were being made. Cut to two years and students now are only using laptops to attend classes, do assignments, and take tests. From whiteboards and blackboards to Google Classroom and Blackboard, students and teachers alike have adapted to the inevitable digital shift of their education.
Online shopping was a major commodity before the Coronavirus, too. However, thanks to the virus (a rarity to speak), online shopping stores have improved their facilities and have made sites much more accessible by adding on-site customer service, easier access to products, quick home delivery and personalized home pages with the best products for you. Customer reviews, social media campaigns, and online coupons are just added feasibility for customers.
Even though online banking emerged in the 1980s in the United Kingdom, COVID-19 was a turning point for E-commerce. The online banking system had been predominantly established but the pandemic caused more people to rely solely on it. Features such as viewing account balances, recent transactions, downloading bank statements and much more are now used by millions of people globally as they try to stay safe by self-quarantining.
All of these shifts beg the question — what impact does digitization have on us? Some may argue it makes us lazy and feeds into our procrastination whereas some may say that this shift has opened up people’s minds to the future. The current generation is seen focusing on artificial intelligence, cyber security, and the vast world of computing instead of traditional professions like medicine and law. Coronavirus certainly paused our lives in the most abrupt manner, but it also gave us time to step back and re-evaluate how we want our future to be.
