Clay appeared on stage in her traditional clothing – a bonnet and modest long dress. The first thing she did was to ask us all to stand up, to imagine we were in a church, and then to confess. There was a sudden loud silence in the room, then we all, transfixed, repeated after her, the following:
I confess, in my loneliness
That I have let technology detach me from others.
In my vanity i have taken selfies and self-promoted on social media
I ask you, fellow users, to help deliver me from false intimacy and treat others as people.
Amen.
After our ‘confession’ she asked us to hug the person next to us. Many of the people attending were from start ups, the tech industry, lots of others from HR and consultancy. It was a mixed bunch but among the 600 people you could sense something unifying: an initial atmosphere of confusion and consternation, a little panic, then chastisement, and lastly relief. Perhaps even in a few cases, deep enlightenment.
Contrary to expectations, the interesting thing about Clay’s message was that she was not against technology per se. She did not preach abstinence of technology, either for her community or herself, just a strong belief in slow adoption that allows the Amish to consider how it could impact on their lives, and then make considered decisions as to how to interact with it.
She calls it using collaborative community thinking and took the time to think about the impact it would have on all aspects of their lives. Cell phones were not banned, but advertised in her community around simplicity, embracing a way of using tech so that it does not get in the way of being human. Clay explained that when they test out new tech, in the end they choose to use only the devices and applications that are good for the soul.
Clay also confessed that she had left the community and moved to Silicon Valley where she quickly noticed how tech was “turning people into zombies and rewiring brains”. This prompted her to extract another ‘confession’ from us, her audience:
When I use digital tech for extended periods of time, I don’t like what it does to me. My mind becomes unfocused and scattered.
Her journey to the west coast prompted her to seek answers for the future of digitalisation and she came to the conclusion that it is not, as you might assume, about unplugging, detoxing or nostalgia. It is instead, in thinking more broadly about existential awareness, intentional tech, humanistic design and democratic ownership. “I believe that digital technology can open a path to our analogue selves. We can use technology to enhance our offline lives”. That is the essence of OMline. A transformational trend that embodies both online and offline existence.
Clay gave that talk ten years ago. Since then we have had a decade in which digital technology and its use has not only changed but has evolved with unprecedented speed and reach. When Clay spoke back then she had a clear vision of what was happening and what was to come, and recommended we listen to our ‘Luddite grumblings’.
It is somewhat ironic that Clay, who came from a very traditional community, was way ahead of her time in her talk. It spoke above all to my generation – Generation X. Born roughly between 1962 and 1980, we were brought up in a world of typewriters, vinyl, inky newspapers and telephones attached to fat curly cables. We have somehow fallen between two stools. On the one hand brought up in a tactile analogue environment, and in the mid-life of our careers and lives, been catapulted into a whole new world of technology. Stuck between these worlds, many of our skills have become obsolete and we struggle to understand and adapt to the changes not just in our jobs but within ourselves. Caught in a turbulent time of transition, Generation X are also a key cohort of the Megatrend Silver Society – the ageing demographic in Western society which has significant spending power.
As the New York Times put it recently, “Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It’s as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in”. Furthermore the market value of our skills has plummeted. Karen McKinley, 55, an advertising executive in Minneapolis, told the paper she has seen talented colleagues “thrown away”. Agencies have merged, trimmed staff and focused on fast, cheap social media content over elaborate photo shoots. “Twenty years ago, you would actually have a shoot”, Ms. McKinley said. “Now, you may use influencers who have no advertising background”. In the wake of the fast working and cheaper influencers comes another threat, artificial intelligence, which seems likely to replace many of the remaining Gen X copywriters, photographers and designers. When photography went digital, people like photo lab technicians and manual retouchers found themselves as inessential as medieval scribes. Then smartphone cameras and easy-to-use editing software made those in possession of the old slow skills redundant.
Like any good (or indeed bad) trend, there will always appear at some point in time a counter trend. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it is not always as one would wish, when one would wish, or as fast or as big as one would wish. And there are signs that we – Generation X – may be still of value for our way of thinking. For example, in September 2024, McKinley co-founded Geezer Creative, an ad agency intended to be a place to find Generation X talent. With the tagline “Older. Faster. Better”, it works on the principle that “If you want to get inside the mind of a 52 year-old, don’t use the mind of a 27 year-old”. The website says very boldly, “It’s time to flip the script on what it means to be 50+. Cuz, damn! Now that we are older, the ads targeting us are as outdated as mothballs and scurvy. We work exclusively with the people who know and love this audience best: A-list creatives, strategists, and marketers with 25+ years of experience. We don’t just understand this audience – we are this audience”.
Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that digitalisation is really just a tool. and that we as humans have always learned to adapt. As someone once cleverly said, “the Stone Age did not come to an end for lack of stones”. And thinking well into the future, I would add to that, that the digital age will not come to an end for lack of digitalisation.
