Health, education, income. What does the future hold for Generation Covid, as generational divides solidify into geographical and technological segregation?

Hosts: Matt Armitage & Richard Bradbury 

Produced: Richard Bradbury for BFM89.9

Episode Sources:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133524-300-generation-covid-what-the-pandemic-means-for-young-peoples-futures/

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Richard Bradbury: As we shift our vocabulary from pandemic to endemic, and frame our thinking around adapting to and living with COVID-19, MSP takes a look at what the world we’re creating today going to look like for future generations. Especially for the kids and young adults whose lives will be very different from those of the generations before.

Richard Bradbury: This isn’t going to be an episode about mask mandates and crackpot vaccine theories, is it?

Matt Armitage:

• No. It's interesting watching a lot of these videos with parents arguing about what their kids want.

• And not wanting them to be masked because it reduces interaction in the classroom.

• But we've also seen, with fashion trends for hoodies and cycling masks,

• This is a generation that is quite happy to hide behind a mask and limit their exposure.

• Reveling in the privacy and anonymity it gives. That sense of invisibility.

• I guess you'd have to talk to a psychologist if you wanted to discuss the links between protecting your physical privacy awhile having an always accessible digital persona.

• That isn't what I wanted to talk about today.

Richard Bradbury: that's good, because you're really not qualified...

Matt Armitage:

• If I worried about what I was qualified to do, I probably wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

• Having said that, I work from home, so I rarely get out of bed in the morning anyway.

• I’m only out of bed to record this because I sound too breathy if I’m lying down.

• We did a couple of shows closer to the start of the pandemic, so I guess mid last year

• Even though time has very little meaning anymore: yesterday today next week. They're all the same.

• When we did those shows we looked at what I was calling Generation C.

• So we've seen this run of generations, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z and of course now we're looking at Gen alpha as well.

• The younger Gen Z, and all of Gen Alpha are likely to be shaped by the events of the past two years.

• Even within that Gen alpha group, we may be looking at distinct generational differences between those born before and after the pandemic.

Richard Bradbury: so when we talk about Gen C we aren't talking about a literal generation as in A, B, C?

Matt Armitage:

• I'm not sure if we've had figurative generations before.

• And as I mentioned when we were doing the shows last year, perhaps these rather arbitrary 15-year generation parameters are becoming less relevant.

• I think I made the point that someone in the upper age limits of the millennial group

• Has more in common with Gen X-er like me and you who experienced dial-up Internet

• Than millennials in their mid 20s who barely remember a world without smartphones.

• But when I say Gen-C and figurative generations, I'm looking at more of a catchall term for everyone who has shared this experience.

Richard Bradbury: We’ve seen other countries reopen. Economic life resuming. Nightlife and entertainment sectors bounce back.

Matt Armitage:

• Yes, some have but they haven't gone back to the way they were.

• I don’t mean in terms of social distancing and capacity limitations. All those technical and logistical issues.

• People's expectations seem to have changed, at least in some developed nations.

• So, I don't think we should have any expectation that things will go back to the way they were.

• If you use the US as an example, many businesses in the minimum wage sector are struggling to hire.

• The relatively generous federal benefits that were offered for the first year of the pandemic made people very aware that they were working for next to nothing.

• And that they deserve something better.

• In the same way, after a couple of decades of retreat, we're seeing an expansion of union activity again in many countries.

• As workers tried to regain wage levels and working conditions that have eroded during this period.

Richard Bradbury: Is this where we come back to automation again?

Matt Armitage:

• Partly. I'm not going to dwell on this because we've talked about automation and the future of work a lot over the past 12 months.

• We've seen an acceleration in the deployment of technology, as we've said before

• from automated online retail through to those ever-popular ultraviolet sanitation robots.

• The deployment of those technologies has fallen most heavily on people under 30 who have disproportionately felt the brunt of job cuts and reduction is working hours during the pandemic.

• As they are the ones most likely to be working low-paid casual or part-time jobs in hospitality, tourism, entertainment.

• And they are often the ones who experience the brunt of lay-offs, redundancies and reduction in hours. Last in, first out…

Richard Bradbury: I suppose the theory is that they’ll have plenty of time to make it back…

Matt Armitage:

• At the same time, societies are storing up costs that they expect these generations to pay for.

• The health costs associated with aging populations, for one.

• The costs of tackling climate change.

• Countries have had to borrow to deal with the sharp fall in GDP many economies have experienced as a result of the pandemic.

• That money will have to be paid back.

• And the wealthiest generation of those post war years has already reached or is reaching retirement age.

• Again, and it's not really a focus of today's episode but it is maybe something will come back to.

• we're seeing a revival of many of the more left-wing policy ideals that have been out of favor for the last couple of decades.

• More calls for Universal basic income policies.

• Driven by younger generations disillusioned with or disdainful of the idea that current economic structures will bring them economic betterment.

• So, the question we should really be asking is: will younger generations consider it worthwhile working to pay these things back?

• Working to solve problems that – to their eyes – were created by previous generations?

Richard Bradbury: Work is one issue. But what about education? We hear the success stories of online and distance learning, but how prepared will this generation of schoolkids be for the challenges of the future?

Matt Armitage:

• Just touching on that a little bit because it has implications for the economy as well as factors like mental health.

• On last week's show we talked about genetic enhancement, and implants that could see us divided into ordinary and extraordinary people.

• In a sense COVID is already doing that.

• Kids across the world have been out of school for most of the last two years.

• Their online and home schooling experiences have been vastly different, not just from country to country,

• But region to region and city to city within the same countries.

• And in many countries those with access to private education have been less disrupted.

• they are the ones most likely to have had a full school day of online lessons.

• in state education sectors across the world, that experience has been variable.

• And income becomes an issue here as well.

• to access distance learning you need the tools to do so

• Computers, stable and fast Internet connections.

• Even things that most of us take for granted like a table and chair and the space you need do engage with those lessons.

Richard Bradbury: Which disproportionately impacts families with fewer financial resources?

Matt Armitage:

• Which are often in inner cities. In deprived areas. And often impact minority ethnic groups.

• Coupled with the economic impacts of the pandemic on many families.

• Those impacts may force some kids out into the workplace before they’ve had the chance to catch up on the education they’ve missed.

• We love to use terms like productive members of society.

• But the pandemic may have derailed that educative ‘production process’ for many thousands or even millions of kids.

• And that’s likely to inflict long-term costs associated with a generation of under-skilled workers.

• Especially as we move into a technology-driven world with fewer opportunities for unskilled and low skilled workers.

• We should be looking towards models that provide life-long learning with frequent upskilling to react to these frequent shocks and changes.

• Instead, we’re discharging a generation of kids who may lack many of the basic skills they’re going to need to compete and adapt to the needs of the future.

Richard Bradbury: You’re usually Mr Progress, with the view that it could all be terrible but that technology will save us all.

Matt Armitage

• We can see where this is heading. It’s not irrevocable. But to change it requires action.

• Another term that I’ve learned recently: economic scarring.

• The danger would be that unanticipated economic shocks like this one cause lasting or semi-permanent damage.

• Under educated and under-resourced workers. Stagnant wages. High levels of national debt.

• So, even if economies bounce back and start to grow again, for some countries those scars may take longer than our lifetimes to heal.

• And, this is something we’ll get to after the break, we’re already seeing these huge societal divisions.

• Usually framed in the polarizing terms of conservatives and progressives.

• But we’re increasingly seeing generational division as well.

BREAK

Richard Bradbury: we're talking about generation C on MSP today. And how the events of the last couple of years may shape our future and those of generations to come.

Richard Bradbury: Before the break you mentioned generational divisions. Do you mean this in an attitudinal or a behavioral sense? For example, in terms of differences between generations that have different comfort levels with digital technology?

Matt Armitage:

• There's certainly an element of that, but that really plays to lazy stereotypes.

• I'm very comfortable with most aspects of digital technology, for example.

• And I'm in an age group that most people under the age of 20 would consider to be extremely old.

• What we're starting to see more and more it's a physical segregation of the generations.

• we used to talk about the hollowing out of small towns and cities as young people moved to larger metropolitan areas to explore economic or social choices.

• that trend from rural to urban is still ongoing across the world.

• Interestingly, and this is something that we should do on a show in the future.

• there have been theories or ideas floated recently that increasing the size of our cities may be one way to tackle climate change.

• There are multiple reasons for it, and there's still a lot of discussion over the merits of the idea.

• But an oversimplified way of thinking about it is to think about cities as production engines for society

• and by making those production engines larger you get to enjoy economies of scale.

Richard Bradbury: Without going too much into your scale engine analogy, this process of urbanization isn't anything new, is it? It’s something that has been seen and studied for decades.

Matt Armitage:

• No, it isn't. but every subsequent societal change also has an impact on that pre-existing trend.

• People are living longer lives. So in those towns and cities that are hollowed out by a migration of the young, you aren't seeing the same levels of churn in the population.

• Because, to be blunt, people are dying much older.

• So the housing stock is still occupied, property prices are maintained.

• Which can actually increase the attractiveness of moving out of the area for the remaining younger population.

• You also see this trend of middle aged and late middle aged urban dwellers wanting to sell up and leave the cities.

• Often with young-ish children in tow enter romantic notion that the countryside is some kind of quiet idyll to bring a family up in.

• Which a few months of farm animals and farm machinery starting work at dawn quickly disabuses them of.

Richard Bradbury: doesn't this run counter to some of the things that we've been talking about over the last few months? One of the focuses of your work from home shows is that more flexible employment policies could help to reverse this age-related talent drain…

Matt Armitage:

• With technology, however complicated things look, the discussion is usually quite simple.

• What will the new OS updates for your mobile device do? That's simple.

• The Boston dynamics robot that does parkour? That’s simple.

• People are far more complicated.

• What we've seen with the Zoom Town phenomenon so far is that in the short term, it can actually increase the flight of young and single people.

• Because the housing stock isn’t able to adapt fast enough.

Richard Bradbury: That influx of new residents is pushing prices up, which then pricies younger residents out of the area?

Matt Armitage:

• Yes, because those younger people tend to be in lower paying jobs.

• Their only solution, other than living out of their car, is to migrate towards those larger towns and cities.

• And those new immigrants from Mega City One often find that the infrastructure they took for granted in the cities simply isn’t there.

• For example, Malaysia is intending to switch off its 3G networks at the end of this year.

• Where my mum lives in the UK, there is no 3G, let alone anything faster.

• And Internet connection speeds are nothing like they are in the cities.

• But more than that, it fuels an intergenerational divide because those generations are living essentially segregated lives.

• Because they are physically in different places you don’t see those intergenerational connections to the same degree.

• This part of the argument was from a fascinating piece on New Scientist by Bobby Duffy.

• We’ll link to that article in the shownotes.

Richard Bradbury: How profound are those effects likely to be?

Matt Armitage:

• We don’t know, because it is unprecedented.

• But we do see it in a lot of the political conflicts we witness on our TV and device screens.

• That move away from the centre ground.

• But there is a technology point here, too.

• We’re seeing the adoption of smart city technologies, moves to use high tech tools to make cities more liveable.

• 5G networks are one aspect of that movement. Use of AI and automated services is another.

• Coordinated transport networks, sharing economy features.

• But we don’t know how long it will take for those technologies to make it to small towns and villages.

• My mum was recently ill and I asked her if there were any food delivery services she could use to bike in services.

• And the best she can do is to ask my nephew to go and pick up a takeaway for her.

• I’ve survived on food delivery apps for that last 2 years, so that relatively small difference kinda blew me away.

• That my day to day reality is so different to hers.

• I can pick up my phone and get all kinds of things delivered within an hour or two.

Richard Bradbury: So we have to look at the wider picture of what the amplifier effects of those differences could be?

Matt Armitage:

• We’re back to that discussion we had last week about the divide between ordinary and extraordinary people.

• We talk about people being left behind because breakthroughs and advances – from technology to health – are not distributed equally. They are not available to all.

• When you see those breakthroughs largely being available to the young, simply because that infrastructure is being built where they live.

• You talk about the older generation being being excluded from those opportunities, which will probably lead to alienation.

• I’ve mentioned the anecdote about a friend witnessing an old man struggling to use a QR code to get into a supermarket early on in the pandemic.

• And giving up and walking away because there was no one to help him and he didn’t want the embarrassment of asking for help.

• That man was effectively shut out by technology that was designed to protect people.

• Often, these technologies aren’t hard to use, but when you have one section of society that they are ubiquitous for.

• And another that’s excluded from them based on geography,

• Then those technologies start to seem more alien and more remote, which helps to drive that social division.

Richard Bradbury: The picture you’re painting sounds like a very bleak one…

Matt Armitage:

• It always sounds bleak when you’re laying scenarios out like this.

• It doesn’t have to be. Generation C isn’t doomed to a terrible future.

• But it will probably require a lot of public policy and government intervention to make sure that we don’t

• Governments are often quite hands-off when it comes to technology.

• Which is understandable. It’s often complex and expensive. Which are not vote-winning policy combinations.

• So governments will often outsource to the market.

• A good example is broadband and mocile communications:

• It’s easier for governments to auction spectrum licenses and leave it to private companies to build telecoms infrastructure.

• It’s interesting that we’ve seen government’s in countries like the UK and US intervening to ban Chinese engineering firms like Huawei from participating in 5G infrastructure projects.

• But those same governments haven’t priortised the creation of companies with that engineering expertise in their own countries.

• Or had much of a hand in planning those networks, other than green-lighting the plans of the telcos bidding for them.

Richard Bradbury: Is there more of an understanding now amongst policymakers that technology isn’t neutral?

Matt Armitage:

• Governments in general have been slow to pick up on that.

• But the only way you can have smart city developments that benefit everyone is for them to be planned and probably paid for with public funds.

• Especially when you want to expand them to areas with lower population densities.

• See, we’ve come full circle to those advocates for larger and more densely populated cities.

• But there are signs that governments are heading in the right direction.

• As Bobby Duffy points out in his piece, some countries are setting up ministries specifically to deal with the future.

• And that’s a positive step.

• Hopefully, that means there’s someone looking at that top-down planning with a less rigid mindset.

Richard Bradbury: And you think that will enable us to move away from the idea of top-down masterplans with a bunch of boxes to tick?

Matt Armitage:

• I hope so.

• Especially as we’re living in a world where new technology can quickly make your masterplan irrelevant.

• In the business sphere we talk about pivoting and dynamism and flexibility and that’s something we need in public office as well.

• We’ve talked about this impending divide between small and big towns.

• Between Gen Z and Alpha and the Xers and Baby Boomers. With the Millennials hovering somewhere inbetween.

• And we’re starting to see a more positive divide between government and local level policies.

• It’s often public officials at the local level that are most adept at using new technologies to benefit their constituents.

• From twitter hotlines to get potholes filled, to using video apps not just for broadcasting policy but for getting honest feedback from the public.

• At the local level at least, policy makers seem to understand that they need to be more visible, more available and more flexible.

• And that to find the solutions that will benefit Generation C, they need to be more creative, more adaptable and more innovative.

• Hopefully, those same attitudes will eventually be passed up the chain to national policymakers.