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from the too-busy-shitposting-to-go-outside dept.
Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good:
Screens used to be for the elite. Now avoiding them is a status symbol.
[...] Life for anyone but the very rich — the physical experience of learning, living and dying — is increasingly mediated by screens.
Not only are screens themselves cheap to make, but they also make things cheaper. Any place that can fit a screen in (classrooms, hospitals, airports, restaurants) can cut costs. And any activity that can happen on a screen becomes cheaper. The texture of life, the tactile experience, is becoming smooth glass.
The rich do not live like this. The rich have grown afraid of screens. They want their children to play with blocks, and tech-free private schools are booming. Humans are more expensive, and rich people are willing and able to pay for them. Conspicuous human interaction — living without a phone for a day, quitting social networks and not answering email — has become a status symbol.
All of this has led to a curious new reality: Human contact is becoming a luxury good.
As more screens appear in the lives of the poor, screens are disappearing from the lives of the rich. The richer you are, the more you spend to be offscreen.
I remember when the tag line for AT&T was Reach out and touch someone and it was portrayed as a good thing.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by etherscythe on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:46PM
I think it actually is. Much of tech is a race to the bottom, in terms of retail commodities, and even "durable goods" these days. Build a product as cheaply as you can, program it as cheaply as you can, and try to supplement the revenue with advertising and other value-"added" bundles is the name of the dominant strategy. We've now reached the next level: how often do you need to use an app to access a service these days? Some businesses don't even have phone numbers listed anymore; app support is even cheaper than a call center. Poor people are in a race to the bottom too; they will take the cheaper tech option than spend gas driving to the bank because it keeps them competitive in the jobs market, resulting in a continuing downward pressure on wages when all of their peers are doing the same and suddenly they can't afford to do it any other way.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"