Social skills on future digital scenarios

Continuing with the month's topic Future Thinking, a methodology where you can plan different scenarios and plan users' behaviours influenced by their context and the trends that affect them when interacting with your product or service. I was thinking about the social skills of the future.

It is true, there world is trying its best to recover from the 180º change made through the pandemic, and trying to make a hybrid way of life. Many companies, events, and projects are being created to be half digital and half physician, even some art NFTS!. That mix immersive experiences with digital artwork. But returning to the social skills, recently I was talking with a cousin, he is a teacher of kids from 4 to 6 years old. He was telling me about the coming back to school in his institution, something that surprised me a lot is that the most challenging part for him, was watching kids being sad, weird, and uncomfortable in recess or during lunch because they didn’t know how to interact, play or talk to each other. So my cousin taught them how to play! Can you believe that?

Clearly, that generation will interact with digital solutions in a way we can’t imagine, not even applying the Future Thinking methodology, but what is really interesting to think about is what social skills have we lost or changed during this digital age? I believe that seeing this in a positive way, as there is a lot of information constantly that we are 14 or 16 hours consuming, we can be more open to learn in our own hands, about distinct cultures or experiences not just from a blog or newsletter. However, from a negative point of view, empathy, transparency, and respect for others are lowered, because when using technology you don’t need to be kind or friendly, just pragmatic.

So, when using the Future Thinking methodology not only the trends and contextual aspects can influence the possible scenarios, but the social skills your niche or target audience can have or develop.