Did Isolation Just Cure Techlash?

Article by Fleur Skinner, Partner / PR, Content & Experience at HeyYou

Did the anti-tech sentiment that’s been steadily growing in society just turn and run back in the opposite direction?

After a week of happily shoving ipads at my kids and giving Zoom a thorough write up in my gratitude journal, I’m left wondering if this sense of reprised tech love might just stick.

Earlier this year I attended Pause Fest; an immersive creative, technology and business conference. Otherwise known as the Australian answer to South by South West (SXSW). I came away feeling like techlash was really starting to take hold; people talked about leaving Facebook in droves, actively engaging less in social media on the whole, and tuning into the human impact of excessive entertainment consumption. Not to mention all the chat about the simmering resentment for the global domination of the ‘FAANG’ pack (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google). Side note, Microsoft must be so pleased it wasn’t recognised as a high performing tech stock the day this acronym was born.

Fast-forward a couple of months and I’ve abandoned the idea of deleting my Facebook account (Instagram - you were always safe my sweet). Social media is now my lifeline of human connection, blogs and niche interest sites are a wealth of ideas to entertain the kids, and an app called Houseparty is my new local pub. I’ve never spent so much time on Facebook messenger as I have in the past two weeks – sanity preserving via meme sharing with all the other mums in my neighbourhood.

For marketing industry people like me, digital is now the leading channel in a whole new way. And here’s where we run, arms open, all the way back to the emergence of the internet, and to the spirit of the way it was first designed. The best practice Covid-19 guide for brands is to pause the promotional schedule; use resources instead to help, share, learn and support. Sounds simple, but trust me when I say this is a revolution in digital marketing.

Like everything about Coivd-19, the real impact is as yet unknown, but there’s no doubt the experiences we have now will last, they’ll shape the way we look at the world and what’s important to us. I’m looking at this laptop right now, and god damn it looks good.