Coronavirus is an opportunity to rethink tech

There is something profoundly contemporary about this pandemic: the way it has revealed the connectedness of our globalized, digital world and also its resulting fragility

Digital coronavirus.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

The air was hot and thick on Aug. 14, 2003 when the power across the northeastern U.S. and central Canada suddenly shut off. With little to do but sit in an increasingly sweltering home, my family went to a friend's house, mostly because they had a gas grill. We cooked dinner together, drank, and against an eerily silent and bright night sky, even sang a little. It was just a blip really, but it was also a reminder that there are different ways to live — that what is normal doesn't necessarily have to be.

It's hard not to think of a moment like that now as we live through the COVID-19 pandemic. But unlike the blackout, where most people simply had to wait it out, COVID-19 seems like it will instead force some sort of change. With a vaccine safe for broad use at least year away, most societies around the world are going to enter a sustained period of inactivity, with yet unknown consequences for the economy and life more broadly.

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Navneet Alang

Navneet Alang is a technology and culture writer based out of Toronto. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, New Republic, Globe and Mail, and Hazlitt.