Unintended consequences can be powerful things. As governments have locked down their economies to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, they have unwittingly imposed crash courses in communications technology on entire populations.
Information-intensive services from education and administration, to banking, journalism and even government have replaced face-to-face meetings by video conferencing. So have yoga classes, concerts and medical consultations. The collective jump from “in real life” to online contact is not limited to business activities. From isolated grandparents to primary school students, families have been forced to learn the techniques of remote communication tools en masse.
This means that the Great Lockdown has willy-nilly brought with it the digital era’s equivalent of a rapid mass literacy programme, this time in how to use IT. If we are to glimpse any silver lining in the current collapse in output, this human capital windfall is one.