How will you communicate?
Ordinary gestures like shaking hands or kissing when we meet have been cancelled. The act itself of seeing each other in person is dangerous: it is better to keep at a distance. There is no doubt that this frame of mind will keep affecting our behaviours in the future.
By now, our lives have definitely become hybrid, and our days are rhythmed by emails, WhatsApp messages, Instagram posts, Skype (which in the past was only used to keep in touch with our children living abroad) and Zoom calls. I have just now received a link to join a meeting on Microsoft Team, which I didn’t even know existed up to a few months ago…
Our liquid life has become an on life and phygital experience, with less and less time available. That hybridisation process that in the last decades has concerned the things surrounding us, from fashion to design to food to medicine, has unexpectedly become part of our daily routine. I think that this radical shift on the communication front will be as revolutionary as the advent of emails. We are not here and now anymore, but here and somewhere else, with an almost infinite range of opportunities. We are therefore on a path towards a new condition that requires new awareness and responsibility in handling human relationships. Meeting, seeing each other in person, hugging each other won’t be ordinary occurrences taken for granted anymore, they will acquire a more profound and authentic meaning. That rushed and awkward “See you” said between our teeth in embarrassing situations won’t be needed anymore: practical daily issues will be dealt with on Zoom, which is not bad after all, and getting together will go back to being a joy.