In an age where the world is connected as one, more and more people feel lonely. With the use of mobile phones and social media, we are in a state of "constant connection." In every moment we scroll our phone, watch a video, hit like, and leave a comment, we are not together with the people around us, and we deprive ourselves of the varied, everyday opportunities for social interaction that would make us feel we are part of a larger society.
The time we spend using a smartphone is time we are not with friends, colleagues, lovers, or our children. We are with other people, yet are in fact alone. In a U.S. Ivy League university there is even a class called "how to read facial expressions," to the point that our society is experiencing difficulty with direct communication. (People do not even know how to ask someone out on a date.) As we view the world through our phones and prize our digital image, the phenomena of FOMO and BOMP spread, and the number of people who, beyond loneliness, experience suffering also increases.
FOMO (fear of missing out; the fear that, in a world where everyone but you is friends, you alone seem to have no friends). BOMP (A belief that others are more popular; the belief that others are more popular). Chapter 8, "Surveillance Capitalism and the Manipulated Economy," talks about the growing number of companies that conduct job interviews through AI (HireVue). I have already come across articles saying that even in Jongno and Noryangjin, people receive tutoring in order to become applicants to this AI's "taste." Because the AI decides the first-round pass, if you do not get past the AI you do not even get a chance to try an in-person interview or discussion.
HireVue claims that in large-scale corporate talent recruitment its cost-effectiveness is outstanding, and that retention rates and job performance are far above average. But it is hard to say that this, too, excludes bias. Algorithm-based employee evaluation systems also contain inhuman elements. Gig-economy workers must always endure being rated, being surveilled, having their log information collected, or digital whipping. The level of monitoring is serious, and it has reached a level where invasion of privacy is a concern. Decisions, too, are excessively entrusted to machines. (Amazon's wristband—it measures the time a worker goes outside a certain boundary or stops.) Even extreme forms of surveillance are already showing themselves in reality. In 2017, the Wisconsin tech company three square market implanted microchips into the hands of more than 50 employees. lol No one can be safe.
Professional fields such as medicine, law, and finance, and even the religious world, are not safe. Currently, one quarter of Japan's population is 65 or older, and with a shortage of people to care for them or to share emotional empathy, AI is taking over instead. A robot called Pepper, or the seal-shaped robot Paro, is being used as a therapy animal. (As far back as 2005!) In the United States too, robot cats, dogs, and social robots, which first appeared in 2016, are proving their growth potential, and the author does not see demand for robot companions being high only among the elderly in the future.
Once the pandemic crisis passes, the pent-up desire for face-to-face connection will explode the "loneliness economy." What must we begin in order not to end true connection with community as mere consumption? It is said that ours is now a world where "kindness and consideration" are dismissed as incompetence, but we need to have some leeway, stop our steps, and talk more. We must break out of the digital privacy cocoon that suffocates us and mingle with the people around us. The antidote to the lonely century can ultimately only be our being there for one another. If we wish to become one in a scattering world, this is the minimum requirement.
A book that compiled such vast knowledge that, among thick books, the references reach a fifth of it. A book with much to feel upon reading. There may be back-and-forth debate, but precisely for that reason the author's intent to deliver accurate knowledge is clear.
A sharp insight into the era of isolation. A book I was about to brush off as nonsense, but a tightly constructed book I could not put down to the end. Rating ★5/5