Are we becomming too Insular ?

[SamThomas]

Without wishing to "thread drift" too much on another thread I thought I'd start a new one.

 

Q : Are we becomming too Insular ?

A (well, mine anyway) : Yes, we are.

 

Companies go well out of their way to avoid human contact***. So many companies that make their telephone number diffecult to find & then when you do you have to wade through option after option & then when you get into the queue the only relief from the dreaded muzak is the 30 second "do you know, the answers to most questions can be found on our websife www.wasteoftime.com" - of course I know & that's why I am here, in an electronic abyss, bnecause the answer to my question is not there.

 

I find it sad that we are losing the simple pleasures of communication - even a simple "good morning" to the person who takes your money as the filling station - horror of horrors I'm even beginning to welcome that North American import ;

"Have a nice day"

"Thank you"

"You're welcome"

 

** Yes, I'm fully aware that employing real people to answer the phone/advice ect costs money.

[Hobby]

I'll answer with what i said in that other post about supermarket checkouts:

 

I can live with either, as i suspect can many others, what I object to more is being forced into one thing or the other... Supermarket checkouts are a prime example of that in practice, on the one hand we have people who shout loudly when the manned checkout is removed and there are others on the other side. Personally I like both, if I'm only in for a few items or there are big queues I'm quite happy using the self service ones but if I have a big shop it's sometimes quicker to wait for a manned checkout who can scan faster than I!

 

The trouble is that we demand cheaper goods and "convenience" (for that usually read quicker service) and often it's cheaper for places to use automation to fulfill those demands rather than a real person, so perhaps we're the victim of ourselves! That doesn't mean everyone wants it (that's clear from views expressed on here and elsewhere) but the majority probably do and a company will pander to what they feel is best for them.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Hobby

[kevinlms]

In a technical forum in Australia, we had a classic example of a non-help call centre.

 

Apparently the poster elderly parents had their internet drop out after a storm. The provider fobbed it off as a general fault in the street. The son attended the parents house shortly after and discovered that the power LED on the modem was not lit. Later tests revealed that not only was the power point working fine, but the plug pack was putting out voltage.

 

But still the provider said that it was faulty in the street and that once that was fixed the internet would be fine - how exactly is fixing anything in the street, going to make the power on LED work? There are 3 other lights to give connection status details on the modem model and none of these were lit either.

 

So the provider has a back up 4G provision so they kept topping that up.

 

Eventually, after a period of time, the provider decided that the street problem was fixed, so despite the neighbours on either side having no fault ever, they would actually send someone out to investigate.

After a short test period, the modem was replaced and the service started working again.

 

So all this, took a grand total of 7 months to fix!

 

The provider rebated the 7 months worth of rental.

[Legend]

Yes 

 

Companies  like to standardise work , so anything that needs manual intervention is reduced . That’s the way they do it . And yes try finding a tel number on a bill for Scottish Gas invoice  or even a number to call the Inland Revenue  without using their portal . 
 

Definitely  more insular , technology has allowed this , but as Hobby says we’ve partly brought it on ourselves 

[Reorte]

Unsurprisingly I completely agree. As others have said it's easy to see why it's happened - the development of technology that enables it, the cost savings it can sometimes produce, the immediate appeal of "convenience" and so on, but I'm convinced the end results of that are rather damaging to society.

[woodenhead]

The reason for lack of contact with humans in business / shopping scenarios is simply down to cost, Human Resources generally make up large amounts of costs and reducing the number of people on the payroll raises profit, reduces risk and is popular with investors.

 

It's been going on for years, initially it was done through outsourcing to India and then South Africa, but whilst it reduced wage bills you still had sizable workforces that needed to be paid, went off sick (you need about 5-10% extra staff to cover your sickness) and they needed holidays and breaks.  If you think of a workforce, you can need up to 30% extra to cover sickness, holidays and other absence.  That's before you get to the little matter of pension provision and other incidental costs of maintaining a workforce.

 

Once the internet hit off, then new opportunities arose - email first, then web chat (one person can handle multiple concurrent chats) and AI is offering massive improvements in search and knowledge provision.  The latest thing has been the use of forums to solve problems where most of the problem solvers are actually other customers who've had the same issue and solved it - nice and cheap as their advice costs the company nothing, you just want a few specialists from the company to oversee/moderate to ensure that advice is not going to bite the company on the a$$.

 

I know of one council who had a strategy in the mid 2010s to actually remove their phone number from any correspondence to force all it's citizens onto online portals and email - it didn't actually work, their contact centre never shrunk but that was a goal at one point and not one I personally agreed with because it would lock out vulnerable and elderly citizens from basic services.

 

The recent trend in supermarkets to self checkout, is on the same vein, massive cost savings - it's probably slower for the customer to self check out but that is not the supermarket's time, it's ours so no cost just put in even more self checkouts.  Even H&M are now following this route, a store revamp locally has seen all but one manned till removed and people even have to remove security tags themselves (how does that work, if you can simply remove the tags??).

 

So in answer, it's not the people who are becoming more insular, it is businesses and organisations reducing cost by shedding themselves of people but selling it to consumers as a benefit.  But it is also important to note, it's not all about additional profit, when a council is doing this, or the NHS it is because they are being forced to find ways to save money so that they can continue to provide front line services like primary care, social care, social services, childrens services, highways and other things we expect from a council.

[kevinlms]

17 minutes ago, Hobby said:

I'll answer with what i said in that other post about supermarket checkouts:

 

I can live with either, as i suspect can many others, what I object to more is being forced into one thing or the other... Supermarket checkouts are a prime example of that in practice, on the one hand we have people who shout loudly when the manned checkout is removed and there are others on the other side. Personally I like both, if I'm only in for a few items or there are big queues I'm quite happy using the self service ones but if I have a big shop it's sometimes quicker to wait for a manned checkout who can scan faster than I!

 

The trouble is that we demand cheaper goods and "convenience" (for that usually read quicker service) and often it's cheaper for places to use automation to fulfill those demands rather than a real person, so perhaps we're the victim of ourselves! That doesn't mean everyone wants it (that's clear from views expressed on here and elsewhere) but the majority probably do and a company will pander to what they feel is best for them.

I avoid using the automatic ones like the plague, I hate the things as something always go wrong - usually I manage to move the bag slightly and the warning goes off, as if I'm a thief!

So they can stick them, but I do use it if I really don't have a choice.

 

I go to a supermarket chain, but different branches. One in the evenings after about 7pm, where apparently the staff disappear, except for one customer that has 2 full trolleys and have just started unloading at the only manned check out! That is the only time I use self serve by choice.

 

I'm not at all convinced by the argument that 'most' prefer them.

[Bill Radford]

5 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

they would actually send someone out to investigate.

You mean that somebody was actually employed to get off their posterior and attend an address????!!!

 

I thought we had all become proficient in TV, computer and any other sort of repairs!

[AndrueC]

I never was a fan of human interaction so I'm enjoying the opportunity to reverting to type. I don't mind other people in small numbers for a short while but I find large numbers of people or several hours of interaction to be tiring. It's not a phobia because I'm not shy and actually enjoy the interaction it's just that I can only take it in small amounts.

 

As far as retail interactions are concerned though I consider having to interact with a human to be a pointless waste of time and effort. Most retail staff aren't adding anything to the process. They are just another cost that puts the price up but I do accept there are social benefits to keeping people who can't or won't do something more productive employed - I'd just rather not have to deal with it personally. Self-service checkout is fine by me, as long as the humans using it don't fanny around. But my real preference is to buy stuff online. A visit to any kind of bricks and mortar shop for me is a waste of time and never a particularly pleasant experience.

[kevinlms]

4 minutes ago, Bill Radford said:

You mean that somebody was actually employed to get off their posterior and attend an address????!!!

 

I thought we had all become proficient in TV, computer and any other sort of repairs!

Only because the MAC address on this type of modem needs to be entered into the system, otherwise a self-install would be sent out.

I know from experience, that just swapping these devices over (they are cable modems), takes the system up to one hour to recognise a change of device. There are ways of speeding up, but you need a laptop or similar with dedicated software, to do that, so you can't ask the customer to do so.

[woodenhead]

5 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

I avoid using the automatic ones like the plague, I hate the things as something always go wrong - usually I manage to move the bag slightly and the warning goes off, as if I'm a thief!

So they can stick them, but I do use it if I really don't have a choice.

 

I go to a supermarket chain, but different branches. One in the evenings after about 7pm, where apparently the staff disappear, except for one customer that has 2 full trolleys and have just started unloading at the only manned check out! That is the only time I use self serve by choice.

 

I'm not at all convinced by the argument that 'most' prefer them.

I self scan and pre-load my bags as I shop, then I simply wave the app at the self checkout, it asks if I want to add any items then I pay and walk out.  Every once in a while they have a member of staff do a random check to ensure what I said I bought I actually did buy, but that's it.  During the pandemic when I was going out once a week but doing our shop and also the in laws, this facility was a godsend - my shopping was all pre-bagged and I just put my in laws shopping down the manned till, otherwise I would have to unload two trolleys, oversee paying both and not pi$$ off the other people queuing behind me.  I would traverse the shop once a week with two trolleys, got quite proficient at handling them both without endangering others and was recognisable to staff.

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, AndrueC said:

I never was a fan of human interaction so I'm enjoying the opportunity to reverting to type. I don't mind other people in small numbers for a short while but I find large numbers of people or several hours of interaction to be tiring. It's not a phobia because I'm not shy and actually enjoy the interaction it's just that I can only take it in small amounts.

 

As far as retail interactions are concerned though I consider having to interact with a human to be a pointless waste of time and effort. Most retail staff aren't adding anything to the process. They are just another cost that puts the price up but I do accept there are social benefits to keeping people who can't or won't do something more productive employed - I'd just rather not have to deal with it personally. Self-service checkout is fine by me, as long as the humans using it don't fanny around. But my real preference is to buy stuff online. A visit to any kind of bricks and mortar shop for me is a waste of time and never a particularly pleasant experience.

I wouldn't say you are the norm, I get where you're coming from as I too find interacting with people difficult at times.

 

But for masses of people it is important, for elderly people it may be the only real interaction they have with the outside world, similarly with vulnerable people.  Then there are the jobs themselves, how many women (as a lot of these sorts of roles are part time and suit women who have young children) are now finding it more difficult to find roles.   Even places like McDonalds are now firmly into self service with only a single till for face to face ordering, luckily coffee shops and cafes have not fallen foul to self service though some pubs did and still have self service apps where you can order to your table.

 

To me, the big issue with the way the world is driving us to be insular is that it will make us less tolerant, not dealing with people face to face like we did changes how we communicate, opens up avenues for echo chambers and makes it more and more difficult for people to learn how to communicate effectively.

 

I am not a big fan of people, I have trouble interacting, but I recognise that a world where people don't see each other face to face in all walks of life is a dangerous thing and one that will lead to real societal challenges and intolerances, we see how bad social media is now and it's a slippery slope showing little sign at present of coming to an end.

[Hroth]

Anyone recall the Barclays Bank advert where a woman desperately tried to talk to "someone" about her bank account amongst a cluster of 1984 style viewscreens?  And Barclays comfortingly said that a customer would alwaysbe able to see a real person?

 

Nowadays I'm not so sure we will. Apart from closing branches left, right and centre, the ones that are still open have the majority of the banking hall filled with slot machines and a small counter at the back, with a minimal number of staff (usually 1 at busy times) to encourage customers to use the slots.  When I think about it, the branches that are getting closed, don't have enough room to install enough slot machines...

 

I'm not hitting Barclays in particular, all the banks with "high street" presences are going the same way.

 

Yes, the smartphone generation are driving insularity, as thats all they know.  And the older you get, the more you will be cut off by the tide of intimidating technology.

 

 

[woodenhead]

The saddest thing about the bank branch employees is that they spend their day now encouraging, guiding and sometimes forcing customers towards self service tills or online - all of which will see them lose their jobs one day.

 

Turkeys promoting Christmas comes to mind, not that they really have an option as their bonuses are likely based upon channel shift away from face to face.

 

There is a branch in Warrington where they only deal with business customers face to face, there is no option for it's personal customers to speak to anyone directly - terrible.

[Reorte]

19 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

The saddest thing about the bank branch employees is that they spend their day now encouraging, guiding and sometimes forcing customers towards self service tills or online - all of which will see them lose their jobs one day.

 

Have to say I didn't get that the last time I went in to a bank (which required a bit of travelling), just in order to change some old ten pound notes I'd found in a jar hidden in a wardrobe. They were very helpful (well as least as helpful as is needed for something that straightforward).

[Reorte]

On the wider subject for some reason it's not just the lack of human interaction in day to day aspects of life that bothers me (I'm not particularly sociable, but it does bother me), I also find something very disturbing and unpleasant about the amount of technology intruding in to everything. I'm not entirely sure whether that's down to one being the cause of the other or whether they're separate but related issues.

 

Clearly I'm not 100% anti technology otherwise I wouldn't be writing this on here, and I like my high-tech toys (decent spec computer and VR system for example, and I like what DCC can do for model railways) but elsewhere I'm ever more finding that it really rather offends me.

[woodenhead]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

On the wider subject for some reason it's not just the lack of human interaction in day to day aspects of life that bothers me (I'm not particularly sociable, but it does bother me), I also find something very disturbing and unpleasant about the amount of technology intruding in to everything. I'm not entirely sure whether that's down to one being the cause of the other or whether they're separate but related issues.

 

Clearly I'm not 100% anti technology otherwise I wouldn't be writing this on here, and I like my high-tech toys (decent spec computer and VR system for example, and I like what DCC can do for model railways) but elsewhere I'm ever more finding that it really rather offends me.

It's because tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft want your data and there are plenty of partners for those companies who are designing the software that will gather and utilise that data.

 

The big push at present is data, big data - move your IT off premise and into the cloud (which is just another set of premises, but more distributed and secure than the locked office space in the basement of your main building).  Then there is a whole massive set of tools and approaches to using that data to gain insight and forecast what things people are going to need and when.  Social Care is a big focus for a lot of companies, if you think we're insular now, wait till your Social Care worker contacts you via Zoom to check in on you, or worse an AI contacts you via chat.  Want to contact the police and its not an emergency, use an AI chatbot to establish the issue and signpost you to how to resolve it.

 

We're at the tip of an iceberg if you ask me.

 

I am just glad that online model railway exhibitions are not going to be the norm...

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

I am just glad that online model railway exhibitions are not going to be the norm...

Although doing a few like that during Covid lockdown was an example of a use of modern technology that I appreciated.

[AndrueC]

17 minutes ago, Reorte said:

On the wider subject for some reason it's not just the lack of human interaction in day to day aspects of life that bothers me (I'm not particularly sociable, but it does bother me), I also find something very disturbing and unpleasant about the amount of technology intruding in to everything. I'm not entirely sure whether that's down to one being the cause of the other or whether they're separate but related issues.

 

Clearly I'm not 100% anti technology otherwise I wouldn't be writing this on here, and I like my high-tech toys (decent spec computer and VR system for example, and I like what DCC can do for model railways) but elsewhere I'm ever more finding that it really rather offends me.

Ah, that only offends me when it's poorly designed or badly 'marketed'. For instance smart thermostats - I don't have one and don't want one because I can't see how one would improve over my current 7-day digital thermostat. My house heating has such a large inertia that I don't want it to switch off when I leave and back on when I come back because that would mean returning to a cold house. If a thermostat is going to do that it needs to factor in the rate at which the house heats up. I can see it doing that if it 'knows' I'm playing golf  - it could start the heating back up when I reached the half-way point. But all I really need is a 'out for X hours' button. I already have one for days when I go on holiday but just being able to tell the system that the house will be empty for three hours would cover all my bases.

 

And don't get me started on IoT stuff.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by AndrueC

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

Ah, that only offends me when it's poorly designed or badly 'marketed'. For instance smart thermostats - I don't have one and don't want one because I can't see how one would improve over my current 7-day digital thermostat. My house heating has such a large inertia that I don't want it to switch off when I leave and back on when I come back because that would mean returning to a cold house. If a thermostat is going to do that it needs to factor in the rate at which the house heats up. I can see it doing that if it 'knows' I'm playing golf  - it could start the heating back up when I reached the half-way point. But all I really need is a 'out for X hours' button. I already have one for days when I go on holiday but just being able to tell the system that the house will be empty for three hours would cover all my bases.

 

And don't get me started on IoT stuff.

 

The old mechanical push-knobs-in timer is good for that, at least for later that day (obviously no good for going away on holiday).

 

To be honest that's an area where I'd prefer a little more technology than I've got, when I got a new boiler a few years ago I rather assumed it would have something a bit more sophisticated than that mechanical timer (not even a thermostat). Wasn't a bottom of the range boiler either. I've not changed it yet (the timer, not the entire boiler; it looks to be a modular swap) because it does the job and a returning to a cold house and / or popping in to turn it on or off if it's too hot or cold isn't really a something I find enough of a hassle worth doing anything about, but I wouldn't be against more.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Reorte

[woodenhead]

The only thing I know about thermostats and control systems for the central heating is that over the years, the screens have got smaller, harder to see and harder to program - it took a change in the price cap in January for us to finally get up the courage to alter when the heating / water comes on in the mornings from pre covid 5am to 8am where it should now be - for 2 years in winter heating the house whilst we were still in bed and getting up an hour after it had gone off.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

There is a branch in Warrington where they only deal with business customers face to face, there is no option for it's personal customers to speak to anyone directly - terrible.

 

The Barclays Liverpool city centre branch is like that, two rows of slot machines, a screened off former personal customer counter, and a business counter. Even that was only single-staffed and there were half a dozen people waiting for service. In deference to the fact that they were business customers, the bank had put out chairs for them to wait at...

[The Johnster]

I think that we are becoming more insular, and that it is a consequence of overpopulation as much as technology.  We live, predominantly, in centres of very dense population, cities, because of the the requirements of our jobs or careers and the availability of the facilities and entertainments a city can offer.  Unless we can afford the suburbs, and the daily hell of commuting, we live in apartments; my immediate neigbours are less than 20 feet away in all directions including up and down.  We cope with this proximity by being pleasant and polite in the hallway and stairwell, but keeping to ourselves at all other times.  We cope, to varying degrees, but this is not a natural way for human beings to live.

 

The natural way for human beings to live is in extended family or tribal groups, only interacting with other groups at festivals (or in warfare, but that did not become a major factor until agriculture developed and people owned property and livestock to defend).  Until the industrial revolution, life for most was a development of this, and while there were the stress factors of warfare, famine, crop failures, and plagues to worry about, we were pretty sociable and did not feel obliged to avoid our neighbours.

 

When we go on holiday, we often go to a location where things are more like the pre-industrial situation, and are able to relax in an environment where everyone seems to be friendly and have the time of day to pass, and the pace of life seems slower, and we tell ourselves that we are recharging our batteries, and that we will retire to the little seaside town, mountain resort, or whatever.  We have had a taste of how human beings should be living all the time.  If we do retire to the holiday village in Wales, Cornwall, Costa del Sol or wherever, we then find that we are just as insulated as we were in the city we lived in previously, but are deprived or our social circle, the locals resent us for having deprived them of homes, have poor access to healthcare, facilities, even banks while the winter storms keep us indoors and waves crash over the breakwater, and we die alone in a holiday paradise that has turned into hell...

 

Insularity has been greatly convenienced by t'internet, and one can live in a city apartment and have one's entire life delivered to you from orders one make on one's phone.  Increasingly, our social lives are becoming restricted to trusted family groups, and we don't even see them in the flesh that often; the internet does the biz again.  In fact, we are beginning to come full circle, to online family groups and tribes as things were pre-agriculture but over fiber optic cables.  It is dangerous to go outside alone after dark, because poverty and overcrowding has resulted in high rates of criminality (though not as bad as 150 years ago) (the best way of coping with poverty and overcrowding is with narcotics, which require criminal activity to fund), and at any other times unpleasant and stressful.  Insularity is a a defence mechanism, not always effective as the increase in mental illnesses proves, but unless we cull about 75% of world population, it is necessary for survival. 

 

I'm not volunteering to be one of the 75%, btw...

 

 

[AndrueC]

36 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

It is dangerous to go outside alone after dark, because poverty and overcrowding has resulted in high rates of criminality (though not as bad as 150 years ago) (the best way of coping with poverty and overcrowding is with narcotics, which require criminal activity to fund), and at any other times unpleasant and stressful.

Remind me not to visit Cardiff :)

[Wheatley]

I've no doubt 70 years ago there were similar complaints about the newfangled supermarkets where you had to pick your own pre-packaged goods off the shelf instead of some helpful soul in a dust coat weighing it out for you. ("Fork 'andles'). I don't know that it's better or worse, it's just different and will continue to change. I certainly don't miss wasting half my lunch break queuing in the bank. 

 

The old ways survive where there is a niche reason for them to.  Our not particularly big town still has 3 proper butchers for example, all pushing the "locally grown/reared" benefits.