Social and Economic Technology - 5.6. Social Impacts from a Sociological point of view
Can Technology really replace Physical Presence?
This is a massive ergonomic issue, the whole scenario must be faced head on.
Everybody does, and always will, prefer to interact with other people face to face, and affordable technology will not change this. However, the questions to be asked are:-
Who really matters when it comes to face to face communication issues?
A point is always reached, (even in personal issues such as love affairs) where imperfect distance communication is infinitely preferable to no communication.
Is the technology being used as effectively as it could be to minimize the inevitable intrusion it makes when compared with face to face communication?
The problem with the present personal computer computer concept as a communication tool is that these issues are simply not addressed at all. Work has been done studying these issues, but the conclusions are generally ignored.
What is it about face to face communication?
The principle concept missing from the personal computer as it is today is a sense of ease of interaction with other people. If a worker is designing a information leaflet in an office, he may ask for opinions from his boss over the colour by just talking as the boss passes by. Another colleague tuts and comments when "they" light-heartily temporarily make it look ridiculous. The value of this type of activity cannot be underestimated when it comes to working relationships, and confidence that boss and worker understand each other. The light hearted interactions give a sense of comradeship and team spirit. The team "know" each other, and know how to trust each other. Whilst in theory "video conferencing" and "project sharing" are not ground breaking new technological concepts, the form of team communication just described just does not in practice take place if a worker "works off site on his computer" to produce the leaflet. The worker tends to present a polished finished presentation, with little comradeship on the way. The "boss" is transformed to be remote, isolated, and judgmental. Input from peers becomes non existent. To solve the problem, the technology needs to assume that inter work group communications "default to being on" rather than an attitude of establishing a costly "call" when really necessary, and an adaption on the part of the team to use technology in this way. It is proposed here that throughout all normal working periods, a form of "video conference call" will normally be in place, and used for the flippant as well as the serious. The group participating in any one call may be more varied and more optimized than the present "office space" system of achieving this.
Selecting and Engaging Employees.
At present an impenetrable communication barrier similar to the one described above exists in the field of an employer selecting a team to work for him in the first place. To date it is almost unheard of to select an employee unless that employee is prepared to work at the employer's premises for a fairly prolonged effective trial period. This means that unless arrangements can be made by the employee for this to happen, the employer/ employee relationship has no chance of starting. This centralizing effect then carries on with inertia, with working off premises being synonymous with a trust and independence which assumes less team communication. If a decent and well established system that was orientated towards the problem existed, a potential employee could see the job vacancies, attend an interview, and start work under the close supervision of a colleague, without offering a physical presence at all. This means physical proximity is not a problem, and the employer need not be, for example, even in the district. Social problems and family break-up in the name of moving to find work could conceivably become a thing of the past. The system could have a large significant effect on enabling work to migrate into sparsely populated rural areas without a decent physical infrastructure. Yet no unheard of technological breakthrough is required, just the design and implementation of an easy to use system that is widely accepted and available.
Who should have the all important real face to face treatment?
On most issues Secotek attempts to offer distance communication as a second best alternative to face to face communication. It concentrates on making its presence in this situation as unobtrusive as possible, and positively targets at interfering with what would happen face to face as little as possible. This is completely justifiable, for massive amounts of communication may then take place that would otherwise be expensive or not take place at all, and this is often the crucial difference between sometime positive happening or not happening. However, there is one big issue where Secotek will unashamedly interfere with a social situation. It plans to positively encourage interaction between villagers in a rural area by placing them physically side by side for true face to face interaction. It also plans to maximize non working hours time with family, and hopes to introduce a degree of flexibility into working life to put more emphasis on family. The encouraged villager to villager face to face interaction is admittedly at the expense of face to face work colleague interaction, but it is considered, in the present social situation, the replacement of "village" and even "family" social life with "work" social life is ill considered thing that happened without planning, with often unthought about downside consequences.
The "hermit" or insular type of person or family unit is welcome to continue to be that way within the Secotek system, and is catered for properly. However, as a social tool Secotek deliberately sets the environment for (normally non electronic) village activities. Most people will be somewhere between the hermit and the active villager, and their exact position is up to them. The importance of including the "next generation", the children into this cannot be over emphasized.
Secotek obviously cannot claim to be the magic ingredient to solve all secular and ethnic problems. The important thing is to make it clear that debate about these issues is an essential part of the design of Secotek. It is considered that face to face communications at village level together with "really good" communications to groups outside the village identity is about the ideal mix for a safe, peaceful, and content society.