By: Dr. Phyllis Bivins-Hudson
January has typically been the time of year when we make new resolutions, remove old things from our lives, begin new projects, make new affirmations, etc.
But January can also be a time for reflection on the past, looking at what you have learned and how you will use that knowledge to facilitate growth in the current year.
So, here is an almost "post-COVID" conversation that I've engaged in with others about how COVID has changed the way human conversations go. Consider this:
Our world is rapidly changing. It seems since COVID, there has been a consistent push to move away from the human contact and communication we have always known and expected.
You may ask what I mean by that. Well, before COVID, for instance, when I needed to address a business concern, I merely picked up the phone, dialed a number, and a party on the other end would pick up on the line, and a conversation would ensue.
“How may I help you?” or
“Have a nice day”
Or something else; even if something else was not a pleasant conversation, there was still a voice on the other end helping me or not.
However, more and more, I am finding that there is no human on the other end.
What is happening? Did this pandemic usher in a global change that not only affected our health but also the way we do business? I believe it has.
I have even found now that fewer and fewer companies are including phone numbers in their literature; they don’t want to interact with us, which forces us to query via email or some other form of communication when we need to reach out to them.
Even when there is a phone number, often it is accompanied by a complete automated experience and the conversation is a series of prompts where each prompt provides a different response, hoping to satisfy your query.
Then the system has the nerve to ask us to rate our experience at the end. We used to rate the person, but now we are rating the machine.
For many of us, email or other form of communication is a welcomed resolve because there are those among us who also don’t wish to engage. But what about those of us who have trouble electronically navigating business?
In particular, what about those who do not have Internet access or seniors who have trouble understanding and/or using online tools?
Then, of course, some simply refuse to engage with technology.
Yes, they do exist. I know at least two people who fit neatly into that category. While they cannot completely disassociate with technology, to the extent that they can, they do.
In other words, these two people do not have cell phones, they still have and use rotary phones (though I don’t know if they work or not, but they say they do), one does not have a computer, and refuses to allow one in her home.
The other one does have a computer; it was given as an incentive to step into the new world.
However, it remains in the box it was sent in, and she refuses to set up even an email address for it.
The two of them do no online business and have canceled business relationships with companies or organizations that won’t meet their expectations of doing business the old-fashioned way. In other words, if a bill must be paid online, the two of them have managed to avoid doing so and instead continue to send their payments via snail mail.
I don’t know what it will take to bring them into the 21st Century because they are still fighting it and appear to be very comfortable where they are.
Back to the human voice.
When I finally get a human voice on the phone, many times it is someone from another country. I have no qualms about people having jobs. I’m glad people of all backgrounds are finding work around the world.
Yet, I must say I have experienced frustration more times than I care to recall when the person on the other end doesn’t speak English or doesn’t speak it well enough to be comprehended.
It’s disconcerting trying to understand or explain the reason for my call. I have even made bad decisions about business matters because of a lack of understanding or bad communication between the representative and me.
I try desperately to hear them and understand them, but find it exhausting, to say the least. I try not to be rude when I ask for a supervisor, hoping the situation will improve. Sometimes it does, but I reach a pinnacle of frustration when the supervisor has the same accent or the same indistinguishable responses to my query.
On the flip side, the representative may be experiencing the same thing with my American accent, but I have not experienced any indication of that.
Perhaps a part of their training is to not show concern about those of us who have accents different from theirs.
On the tail end of these concerns is the big money-grabbing businesses that have taken a large percentage of the customer service jobs away from Americans, outsourcing them to other countries where people will work for far less money than Americans and they won’t complain about the exceptional low wages.
I know some will say that where jobs are concerned, America is holding its own, as indicated in the following 2024 statement from the Department of Labor
“The unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent in December, and the number of unemployed persons was essentially unchanged at 6.3 million. These measures are higher than a year earlier when the jobless rate was 3.5 percent and the number of unemployed persons was 5.7 million”. (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf News Release Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Department of Labor USDL-24-006).
But note that despite the statistics seeming to indicate a move back to pre-COVID figures, there are still more than 5.7 million people in this country who are still unemployed.
It would seem to me that those at the helm would revisit the adage that directs us all to take care of home before taking care of others.
Further adding to this conversation concerning a lack of communication, we now have to contend with the possibility of an artificial intelligence or AI takeover.
By now, we have all heard of this phenomenon, but for those who need a refresher, AI refers to machines that have been developed to perform tasks typically carried out by humans. So there you have it, another way of extracting the human touch from our lives.
While AI has many benefits, it also has some detriments. Let’s take a look.
Beneficially, AI can stand in where we cannot. For instance, it fuels our smartphones, empowers our smart home devices, enables autonomous vehicles, and even provides guidance in strategic financial choices and more.
Detrimentally, because AI is trained on data that has been created by humans, and as we know, as humans, we all come with our biases, these biases find their way into the AI systems.
When this happens, there can be discrimination or other unfair practices like hiring, lending, or facial recognition. And lest we forget, AI causes job displacement as well. So, the job your uncle or auntie or you or I used to do can potentially be replaced using the AI system.
Case in point, I am a very seasoned educator, and when I learned that AI could now come into a classroom and teach students, I was stunned, to say the least.
I cannot imagine any machine understanding the feelings of a sick child or the lack of understanding of a concept taught to children who may need a differentiated approach to their academic experience.
This kind of teaching could become problematic if the AI system’s data has been programmed by humans who lack the experiences of children from varying backgrounds.
Then, of course, there is the idea of a security breach. Who will be watching the store when malicious scammers are waiting in the wings to hack the AI system? A breach could have irreparable consequences.
In the end, communication has a far greater reach than just a conversation between or among people. Here are some important reasons why we should fight to preserve how we communicate:
- When we communicate, we talk to one another, but we also provide physical touch, which releases oxytocin from the body. This is very important to our well-being because oxytocin reduces stress and calms our nervous system.
- Human interaction also provides us with a sense of community and connection, which helps us build relationships and trust.
- When we learn to communicate with each other, we begin to grow in our personal and professional lives.
- Our mental health is also affected by a lack of human communication, so we should hold fast to this one because our world is suffering greatly from mental health issues that are quickly taking over our younger population.
- Human contact also helps people through some of the challenges associated with a breakdown in the immune system. It helps them maintain a state of mental well-being.
So, the next time you engage in a conversation with a human, deliberately think about how fortunate you are to be able to speak to another human being.
Who knows what the future may hold for us in this new age of unimaginable phenomena happening in our world?
There may come a time when we are no longer allowed to speak directly or one-on-one to humans but instead have our messages transmitted through AI. Hmm! Now that’s something to think about.
Until next time, keep flying on your own wings…