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Social Debt and our Digital Lives
One of our biggest societal challenges is how we deal with social debt in an age of so much communication. What can other cultures teach us?
Sharif tossed, turned again, trying to think of something that would settle his mind, help him drift off to sleep. It was closing in on 2AM and he had an early start ahead of him, key meetings. He had emails to respond to, Slack threads, texts from family. He gave up, reached for his mobile by the bedside and began to respond.
This is a form of social debt. Our hunter-gatherer brains weren’t designed to cope with. Our digital world has burst through the boundaries of our social minds. Each notification, message, signal creates a subtle obligation of reciprocity. Social capital is being exchanged but often at unsustainable rates. This is social debt.
Most of us probably don’t think of it this way, but that’s what’s happening when we feel we have top respond in some fashion, to these notifications. It’s in part why we see so many email and other messaging apps that offer AI tools to write responses and engage with others.
It may be an area that some AI tools can help our brains with, offloading some of that social debt, enabling us to focus on more meaningful relationships. Yet…
